We invited former Flash Frontier editor Nod Ghosh to tell us about her recent adventures in rock art. She collaborates with a wide community in Christchurch, and we are delighted that she and her rock art group are sharing some of their work this month. We also invited Nod to share a stone story for this issue. Read on to find out more about rock art, and Nod’s flash fiction ‘My Mother Had A Stone’.

Rock art and our creative community

Artists are often excited by the prospect of using new substrates to create work on. I stumbled across rock painting while experimenting with acrylic ink markers I use for embellishing “dirty pour” paintings. Pouring requires minimal skill and produces maximum mess. By contrast, painting rocks is a relatively tidy process. The skill utilised varies according to the practitioner.

As well as pens, rock artists apply paint with “dotting tools”. They may attach gemstones or beads to their art. A layer of varnish protects the completed work.

Some artists paint representational images on rocks. Others make abstracts. A few create designs for children. I chose patterns that complement a stone’s shape.

Although I have created representational art and made stylised images of animals, (there are suggestions available online for beginners) my preferred form is the mandala. Creating concentric patterns around a focal point steers the mind away from the “buzz” of normal life. Mandala feature as a spiritual tool in various practices – an ancient form of meditative mindfulness.

There is an active community of rock painters who follow various conventions. We leave work in public places for others to find, as “random acts of kindness”. Sometimes, we add affirmations or validating aphorisms. Recently, “Seven Sharp” featured an article about a child who sold rocks to raise funds for Wellington Free Ambulance service. I have donated stones to the Cancer Society to include in care packages.

We don’t leave artwork in unspoilt locations. Rather, it is placed in environments already impacted by humans, including parks, bike tracks or gardens. Some have created dedicated shrine-like spaces. Artist Fiona McLeod has posted a message in her cottage garden encouraging passers-by to take a stone and perhaps leave one in exchange. McLeod’s impressive array of work can be viewed on Instagram.

We find rocks on the shoreline or within the urban landscape. The predominant rock in Canterbury is greywacke, a form of sandstone. We recruit friends and whanau to collect stones for us too. Some make their own “rocks” by pouring concrete into moulds.

I am part of a stone painting collective that includes members who have studied fine art. However, almost anyone can create in this way, something I impress upon visitors. People rarely leave our home without rocks in their hands and smiles on their faces. Some have gone on to become stone painters themselves – our very own rock stars.

A story by Nod Ghosh

My Mother Had A Stone

Years without one mean you might forget what a mother is.

It comes to me when I crush ginger, a memory of my mother’s stone.

The stone was brown. Flat on one surface with grooves on two sides, shallow indentations that could have been moulded for small fingers. Even as a child, you could hold the stone in one hand.

My mother taught me how to make ginger tea, a soothing brew that cured any illness and lifted the spirits.

I’d stand on tiptoe and watch her crush the knotted roots with her stone, the rock a shade darker than the bread-crust brown of her skin. My skin.

Without a mother, you forget how to be a mother.

Without the seedbed of a good family, it’s hard to sink your roots.

But I try.

I make ginger tea for my children when they are sick. It is done to heal them, but sometimes I doubt its potency. Though it has a mother’s touch, I don’t know whether it is strong enough, kind enough. The sugary heat causes stray fragments to swirl. I sense them diffusing away.

My mother found her stone on holiday. She might have been in Darjeeling. She could have been in South Wales. She often spoke fondly of her holidays when she ground spices. Mum’s words resonate years later, when I crush ginger with her stone.

Years without a mother mean you might forget what one is. But this mother, my mother, cut a groove in my memory so she won’t fade.

Draining the last of the tea, I look at the stone she left for me, smooth as a mirror, heavy as thunder. I know it’s healing me, even though I didn’t realise I was broken.

Previously published in Root, Branch Tree, the UK NFFD anthology, 2020

A graduate of the Hagley Writers’ Institute, Ōtautahi, Christchurch, Nod Ghosh has had work published in NZ and overseas. Nod was associate editor of Flash Frontier, an Adventure in Short Fiction 2016-7. Nod’s books include The Crazed Wind (2018), Filthy Sucre (2020), Toy Train (2021), Love, Lemons and Illicit Sex (2023), Throw a Seven (2023) and The Two-Tailed Snake (2023). How to Bake a Book is forthcoming from Everytime Press in 2024. Further information is available on Nod’s website: www.nodghosh.com