Elaine Michaud
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My current series, Yosemite Granite, is inspired by rock—the varied granites in Yosemite National Park. I am awed by the magnificence of the rock—what Kenneth Brower referred to as “dizzying verticalities of stone”—and the history of its creation millions of years ago. The promise of solidity, longevity, introspection, stillness, and beauty—all of this contributes to what is for me the magic of granite. My love of granite can be traced back to growing up in New England, where granite is ubiquitous but mostly hidden underground.
Layering charcoal, graphite, ink, pigment, and paint, I translate, in close-up focus, the surprising colors and complexity of Yosemite’s unearthed rock and its unique visual language: the layering of natural processes over time, the characteristic textures, striations, and colors of the mineral crystals that form the granitic rock, and lichens and other elements that have left their marks on this majestic landscape of stone.
