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If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” Marc Chagall 
On a couple occasions I have referred to Elephant Rocks as Missouri’s Energy Vortex. It’s one of the reasons I go there, time and time again. I want to experience it in all its seasons and moods. I love it just before sunset when it’s quiet, and I have it all to myself. I love being there on a busy Saturday afternoon, when its filled with a bus load of children, laughing, screaming as they jump from rock to rock. I like experiencing it alone on a cold, blustery winter day just to be reminded life ain’t easy. It’s also why I’ve spent the last year painting Mid-America’s high energy place. 
Have you been to Sedona, Arizona? It’s world famous for its energy vortexes. I’ve experienced the famed energy vortexes of Cathedral Rock, Oak Creek Canyon, Bell Rock and Buddha Beach. Yes, the red rock country of Sedona is absolutely beautiful, but the only real energy I’ve found was being expended by the Chamber of Commerce and the local businesses in their attempt to seduce tourist to come there and spend money. Five dollar a car parking just to see a panoramic view of the Sedona skyline. Thirty-minute waits to drive five blocks through Sedona's packed downtown on a spring weekend, overpriced hotels and tourists tripping over each other hiking to Buddha Beach. Is that the type of energy vortex you want? Give me Elephant Rocks. It’s quiet, its free and it's beautiful.
 This blog is an edited version of an article written by Vicki French Bennington, Executive Editor for Gazelle Magazine. To read the whole article visit: https://gazellemagazine.com/natural-beauty-strength-stability-rocks/ When decorating your office – whether that be at home or away from home – think outside the box. Think outside. Think rocks.  Building Trust, 18X36 Acrylic and Cairn in the Morning Mist, 48X24 Oil in a office setting While rocks may not seem like a first choice for decorating, you might want to think again. As far as artist, photographer and blogger Garry McMichael is concerned “Rocks definitely rock.” And few things show strength and stability as much as the symbolism created by rocks. Remember the saying, “solid as a rock.” As far back as he can remember, he has had an interest in rocks and geology. “Rocks have personalities, just as family and friends do; rocks are people I know,” he said. “Some are bright, colorful and make me laugh. Others are secretive, dark and foreboding, keeping all their secrets to themselves. Some rocks are as smooth as a new baby’s skin, while others have sharp edges and carry the scars of a million years. “Some rocks work together, forming teams, stacking together, while others are loners. Like people, rocks fail, they crack, they slowly erode and they break under natures heavy hand. But don’t ever underestimate a rock. They have strength and the ability to endure in a way that people can only wish for. We can learn a lot from rocks,” he added.  Winter Solstice Sunset, 24X36 Acrylic in a living room setting. McMichael’s body of work, “Mystic Cairns” is a series of paintings of rocks in the form of still-lifes and rock-strewn landscapes. As an avid student of still life painters and their subjects, McMichael said he is always intrigued by the subjects that are chosen. Most still life painters select everyday things such as fruit, flowers, simple utensils and kitchenware. “In the 18th century, it wasn’t uncommon for painters to create paintings of the game (rabbit, quail, fish) they hunted for nourishment. They would often include their trusty musket and knives in the paintings. One of Garry’s favorite still life painters is Giorgio Morandi, a well-known Italian still life painter whose subject was wine bottles, tin cans, bricks and simple boxes, all painted white, gray or black. He painted hundreds of them in his little apartment by the light coming in his windows. They were all titled Natura Morta, with the year each was painted as part of the title. Georgia O’Keeffe was famous for painting bones, horns and antlers, with and without the New Mexico landscape.
 Click Here to see more of my Mystic Cairns paintings or my Elephant Rocks paintings.
Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work. ― Stephen King Richland Creek, Buffalo River Country 24X18 Acrylic on canvas
 Hello darkness, my old friend |
| I am so fortunate. God gave me the gift of imagination. All my life I’ve seen ideas, opportunities, things that others don’t. As an artist I can go to a location and see subjects, compositions, light, color, and contrast as few do. It’s not just talent and training, it’s a gift. But imagination, concepts and ideas are just half the battle. The secret is “follow through”. Concepts and ideas without “follow through” have no value. Consider an entrepreneur, like the late Steve Jobs, without follow through Apple wouldn’t exist. Show me one person whose life hasn’t been affected by the follow through of Steve Jobs. It’s the same with artists. Monet’s Water Lilies would not exist without his obsession to paint them. The same can be said about the hundreds of paintings of Norman Rockwell’s nostalgic Americana, or Georgia O’Keeffe’s Southwest Landscapes, or Mark Bradford’s contemporary America. Follow through, it’s the gift of all great artists. Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again… |
To create one’s own world takes courage.” Georgia O’Keeffe
Kanab Sandstone Cairn (study) 12X12 Oil on Canvas
Why do I paint rocks? Don’t think of them as rocks. They have personality just as family and friends do; rocks are people I know. Some are bright, colorful and make me laugh. Others are secretive, dark and foreboding, keeping all their secrets to themselves. Some rocks are as smooth as a new baby’s skin while others have sharp edges and carry the scars of a million years. Some rocks work together, forming teams, stacking together, leaning on each other, while others are loners. Like people, rocks fail, they crack, they slowly erode and they break under natures heavy hand. But don’t ever under estimate a rock. They have strength and the ability to endure people can only wish for. We can learn a lot from rocks.
"Whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done” -Van Gogh
Double Arch Cairn, found in Arches National Park. 30"X40" Acrylic on canvas.
The hardest decision an artist makes is when is the artwork complete. I firmly believe any artist worth his salt is always seeking perfection. Unfortunately, if that were our goal we would never complete a painting. At some point we have to make the decision our art is “good enough”. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve changed a painting or restarted one, sometimes years later, because it wasn’t good enough. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve thrown a painting into file cabinet or the trash because it wasn’t good enough.
Seeking perfection is part of the process being a great artist.
Seeking perfection is part of the process being a great artist.
"An arch consists of two weaknesses, leaning one against another, make a strength." -Leonardo da Vinci
| Building Trust 15X30 Oil on Canvas |
| In my search for Cairns I sometimes come across stone arches. Far more complicated than stacking stones, arches require more dexterity and patience to build. In my few attempts to build an arch, I have found myself wishing I had three hands. I think I’ll stick to painting them. Perhaps Arches should be built by a couple or as a family project which would seem appropriate. An arch built of rocks is like a family. Every rock/everyone supports each other, and as in a family, everyone works to make the family whole. Engineers may talk of the importance of a “keystone”, but in my mind every stone in the arch is the keystone. Take one out and you may still be able to build an arch, but it is much diminished. "Building Trust” is a painting based on a rock arch I found on a Huzzah Creek gravel bar in the middle of the Missouri Ozarks. Built by someone whose patience I can only appreciate. |
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| Power Rocks 12X24 Acrylic on Canvas |
| Today a fellow artist accused me of being obsessed with painting rocks. My immediate response was, “No! I’m in the process of creating a body of work.” But of course, my friend is right. Here are a few thoughts reflecting on obsession and creativity. |
“Be obsessed or be average.” -Grant Cardone
“Until your mission is an obsession, nothing will change.” -Robin Sharma
“A great artist has a unique vision – obsession. They are someone willing to fail flamboyantly.” -Jerry Saltz
“When passion meets inspiration, an obsession is born.” -Anonymous
“Good requires motivation, great requires obsession.” -M. Cobanli
“Your job is to get your audience to care about your obsessions.” -Martin Scorsese
“Follow your most intense obsession mercilessly.” -Frank Kafka
“To succeed, work hard, never give up and above all cherish a magnificent obsession.” -Walt Disney
“Obsessed is a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated.” -Anonymous
“May your obsessions be impassioned and long lived.” -Garry McMichael
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Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do. -Edgar Degas
Top of Elephant Rocks 18X18 Oil on Canvas
Here’s my secret to creating a painting. Pour myself glass of port. Lay in the sky and clouds. Mix burnt sienna, Naples yellow, with a spot of cadmium red. Test it. Nice Rock color. Pour more port. Pick the paint up with a 2-inch brush and lay it down as the underpainting. Watch the drips. Try again with a little burnt umber added to give the rocks shape. More red, and that stuff over there in a jar? Pour another glass of port. Yeah… No? Wipe it down and start over again... maybe better this time. Stop... Sip... Paint. Maybe add white for the highlights? Maybe…
“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” Andy Warhol
| Wintering Elephant Rocks 15X30 Acrylic on canvas |
| "So Garry, just how long have you been an Artist?" Since the day I could scribble with a pencil or a crayon. I have a photo of myself with a Kodak Brownie hanging around my neck when I was nine. I took my camera everywhere. When I was a high school senior I illustrated a student literary book with my drawings. I loved being a student photographer. It gave me the opportunity to get out of class to take photos of other students and activities for the yearbook. |  |
| A camera in my hands was like wearing a protective coat of armor. Photography helped me to overcome my shyness, approach other students, especially girls, and develop relationship skills that many students don’t learn until later in life. Photography also helped me to develop a life-long love for the outdoors, nature and the Missouri/Arkansas Ozarks in particular. Today the American landscape is an integral part of my art. Our clear running streams and green-forested hills are a treasure to behold and a challenge to paint. I plan to take photos and paint until the day I die. How long do you plan to be an artist?  |
| Wintering Elephant Rocks If you want to have Elephant Rocks State Park all to yourself then explore it in the winter. A unique granite geological formation found in the St. Francis Mountains of the Missouri Ozarks. There is nothing quite like this rock-strewn landscape anywhere else in Missouri or Mid-America. Giant boulders of pink granite rocks thrown all over the landscape and hardwood forest. Throughout the centuries green and gray lichens and mosses have only added to their shape, texture and color. |
Like a sandcastle, all is temporary. Build it,
tend it, enjoy it. And when the time comes let it go.
– Jack Kornfield
| Rock Castle 30X30 Oil on Canvas |
| This is more than a cairn. It’s a Rock Castle I found late one evening on Lake Superior's rocky shore. I love the makers creative design. This person is building more than a cairn, they are building a dream. Unfortunately, as a photographer, I found the late evening light disappointing. I photographed it anyway, but later, when creating this painting I changed the lighting to bring out the textures and shapes of the stacked rocks. The art of this cairn builder inspired me. I consider Rock Castle to be a collaboration with another artist I've never met. |
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Rock, Paper Scissors 30x30 Oil on Canvas |
It’s very simple. Look, scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock, Spock vaporizes rock, and as it always has been rock crushes scissors. -The Big Bang Theory |
| That’s not very simple. Maybe life is becoming too complex for me. A phone ringing in my pocket, a wrist watch that monitors my heart, and all that crap on “social media”. And on television, a show about really brainy people who don’t have enough sense to know when to come out of the rain. What happened to a simple walk in the woods, or reading a newspaper while sitting on a toilet? I know the Big Bang Theory is funny, but life is not that complicated. Lord, give me an opportunity to walk in the woods, and build a cairn so others can follow. |
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Cairns represent a trail marker that guides one through uncertain areas of life. They Provide guidance, hope, balance, continuity, and confidence on the journey down the path of life. -John P. Kreamer
| Supporting Our Dream 14X11, Acrylic on Board |
| Cairns are rocks stacked on top of each other. It takes at least three rocks to make a cairn. All over the world, from ancient times until present, from mountains to deserts and distant coasts, people have built cairns. Sometimes they mark a trail, a significant place or tomb, serve as communication, have a religious meaning or an artistic purpose. Cairns are built with careful effort - they don't just appear randomly in nature. Stones don't drop out of the sky and stack themselves naturally into stable structures. Only man can make a cairn and only man can give it meaning. Supporting Our Dream is a painting of a simple cairn, but I see much more. I envision it as a couple, precariously leaning on each other to support their dream, whether it be a family, children, an adventure, or something special only to them. |
Click Here Supporting Our Dream To purchase Supporting Our Dream
“Balance is not something you find, it's something
you create.” - Jana Kingsford
| Cairn in the Morning Mist 48X24 Oil on canvas |
| Cairns have become a personal symbol in my quest to live a well-balanced life. You start with a solid foundation stone and build from there. Day-by-day, year-by-year, we build our inner cairn constantly balancing the many facets of our lives – personal pursuits, professional goals, relationships, order, rhythm and harmony. When they are out of balance our cairn falls down. Failure? No, but we must rebuild our cairn all over again. When our life is balanced we feel it. Balance is an internal state. When I come across someone else’s cairn, sitting strong on the edge of a great lake, or precariously on a windswept promontory, I know I have found another seeker searching for balance in their lives. Seeing these creative stacks of rocks created and left behind by others, inspires my paintings. I consider these paintings to be collaborations with seekers I’ve never met. The painting, Cairn in the Morning Mist, was inspired by a cairn built a couple feet offshore in Lake Superior near Grand Marais, Minnesota. The sun was just rising through the early morning mist.
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So why would you want to paint rocks?
| Some of my earliest memories are of sitting on an Ozark Creek gravel bar picking up ancient smooth stones and throwing them in the fast flowing stream “Plunk". Pick up another one. "Plunk", the sound of the rock splashing in the water. My mother said I would spend hours entertaining myself tossing those rocks. At about nine years old on a family vacation out west I went into my first rock shop and truly discovered the beauty of rocks. Rocks have color, shape, texture, weight and strength; the very same characteristics I try to capture in paintings today. I saw my very first cairn on a fishing trip to Canada. We were driving along a gravel road and about every mile or so there would be a stack of rocks along the side of the road. Stopping at a gas station the attendant explained they are "cairns", used to mark trails and guide people to their destinations. The natural world and the environment have always been a powerful influence in my art, but so has man and our relationship to the environment. A rock is nature, but it can be a trail marker, a man can stack rocks and turn them into a symbol, a fence, a shelter or even an exquisite sculpture. It is where nature and man come together I create may best paintings. North shore Cairn is one of my earliest paintings, inspired by cairns found on Lake Superior. My goal was to work with a monochromatic palette where the lighting, values and texture are key. In Northshore Cairn you can see the heavy influence of the mid 20thcentury photographers, Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz and Ansel Adams.
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Garry McMichael