Advancing Stone Appreciation through Professional Stone Collectors:A Look at Ken McLeod, one of North America's Premier Stone Collectors.

摘要

Collecting and appreciating stones as natural objects of art in western countries is relatively new, a phenomenon that has been developing slowly, especially since the 1950s. Stone appreciation, like the art of bonsai and penjing, has been strongly influenced by Chinese and Japanese traditions in North America, Europe and other Western countries.The development of stone appreciation hobby outside of China and Japan requires several essential components: basic information and expertise to guide development; the availability of suitable material; and opportunities to share through exhibits, publications, and web sites. While a few Chinese stones were introduced first in North American in the early 1900s and, perhaps, Europe; Western countries have been more strongly influenced by Japanese guidelines for collecting, evaluating, and displaying stones.Japanese Americans were among the first to begin to explore some of the river systems in California in the early 1960s. They were soon followed by a number of Caucasian Americans who were interested in rocks, minerals, and in Asian stone appreciation.Small clubs went in search of Japanese-like stones for the fledgling stone appreciation culture in North America. Most of the stone collecting was individuals searching for interesting pieces for their personal collections. Much of the initial collecting occurred along the western coast and western mountains of North America. Many wonderful, dark, landscape type stones were found in the Eel River in northern California. Some of these serpentine or basaltic stones resembled in shape, the beautiful stones found in some Japanese rivers. People located in less suitable areas for finding quality stones or who were unable to search areas, were largely left out of opportunities to acquire stones as a hobby. This limited the supply of North American stones and also limited the growth of the hobby of stone appreciation.