2020 Collection: Axis Mundi
“I only work with lost and found things.”
I descended down a shaky 15-metre ladder, into darkness…
My feet touched the ground, and my eyes slowly adjusted to the unfamiliar environs. The mine owner, my guide, shone a torch through the tunnel. I followed him, my back hunched against the earthen wall, the twists in our seemingly endless hole meandering deeper and deeper. At some point, he noted that we were 150 metres below ground level. He pointed out different pockets containing an array of minerals: tourmaline, feldspar, albite, and of course, quartz…
As I moved through the depths of this quarry in silence, I pondered the profundity of my guide’s vocation. Mining is finding that which has been long lost to time. The stones of this region are said to have been formed 400 million years ago. They are even older than the dinosaurs.