2019 Collection: Crossing the River

I waded into the water… feeling with my hands and feet to get ahold of the stones along its bed to move me onward.

A couple of weeks before our 2019 Exhibition, I was in Ubud, Bali for a day trip. I noticed a small bag of trash that someone had unceremoniously discarded in a river, and decided to retrieve it. I waded into the water and slowly fought the currents, feeling with my hands and feet to get ahold of the stones along its bed to move me onward. Just an hour later, my partner sent me the opening line of this text. Was it pure coincidence, or the universe sending me a sign?

So, it seemed right to take a page out of pragmatist and visionary Deng Xiaoping’s book, when reflecting on the growth of Set in Stone Gallery. In 2013, I took a leap of faith and crossed a wide, swift-running river without a single roadmap or blueprint to guide me into this field. The fellow gallerists I had met had the advantage of degrees in art history, arts management, had interned at museums. I had no such exposure, with only my background in finance to fall back on. I simply had a vision and a strange obsession: stones!

Six years have passed. In that time, I’ve faced my fears, found a higher calling, and met so many brilliant gems of people along the way. I’m grateful for the learnings, however bumpy, for all the unforeseen adaptations, the twists and turns in that river. Yet I am especially thankful for how this business has changed my entire perspective on life itself.

Set in Stone Gallery was birthed through combining a scientific curiosity and a naturalist’s ethos with an aesthetic sensibility. In the beginning, I placed the study of palaeontology on a pedestal by showcasing a variety and rarity of specimens. However, after several years of dealing privately in crystals and minerals, and hearing from my own collectors about their powerful spiritual properties, I’ve become more open to the unknown and the supernatural. For me, this gradual discovery of the metaphysical wonders of the universe has been the most surprising and rewarding part of the Set in Stone journey. 

I hope that this 2019 Exhibition, curated to bring together rare fossils, crystals and minerals, will also unearth for you more questions than answers, as we all attempt to cross this river of life, simply by feeling the stones.

Cliff Hartono

Founder, Set in Stone Gallery