This project occurred to me as a different narrative when hiking years ago at Plaza Blanca (the White Place – one of Georgia O’Keeffe’s favorite spots). The ground surface is covered in many areas with a heavy scattering of ancient river cobbles, many of which have been split by the relentless freezing and thawing of hundreds of thousands or millions of years. A unique property of water is expansion when it freezes – the only liquid that does not contract. With each Winter, an imperceptible increase in the width of the crack. With each Summer, the stress of heat and the intrusion of more water. Would it not be an amazing experience, with or without a camera, to be present at the moment when a rock visibly splits through its entire mass for the first time. I am sure that the split and the sound would be so instant we would hardly believe our eyes and ears.

I was struck by the realization that cracking rocks were not always a feature of Earth’s geology. Water was not in the beginning and for billions of years present and then ubiquitous, as it now is. My first concept was “Cracked – After Billions Of Years Without Water”. Too many of you would likely say, “seen one broken rock, seen ‘em all”. Further hiking in nearby areas introduced me to gigantic boulders cleaved, like the smaller cobbles, in amazingly straight and flat fractures. Many of these splits, as my images convey, are sufficiently large to swallow a person. It seems to me the images convey a tension between the durable rock and fragile model – and, although we would expect the cracks to move further apart, we have no guaranty. Our only choice is not to linger long enough to experience the answer.