Meeting Place

A public art project located in Avondale, AZ

“Meeting Place” is an installation featuring 40 tons of massive Kino Blue boulders. It was thrilling to discover the quarry where these boulders were mined. These magnificent boulders were transported to the site, Alamar, in Avondale, Arizona—which is located at the confluence of the Gila, Salt and Verde Rivers—the Tres Rios Preserve. The boulders were quarried near Florence, Arizona, an area rich in mineral deposits, especially copper. The boulders are rimed with turquoise, malachite, and lapis. Meeting Place speaks to relocation and finding home, to making connections and conversation. The boulders, placed in a ring, are in conversation with an etched steel plate, depicting the path the boulders took from the mountain’s living rock to their new home. I think a lot about people moving and use and transformation of nature–mining and gravel pits scar the land and leave toxic messes. Recently Alamar was irrigated with water from the depleting aquifer, a thousand acres of laser leveled alfalfa fields. I am learning from these rocks about time and space and geography.