Growing crystals
Over the past two months I’ve been experimenting with growing crystals on small pebbles the I find locally. Most of the recent ones are from Rock Creek Park in DC, and one was picked up on the street near where I’m living for a few months. I wanted to experiment with easily available materials, so I chose sugar which is cheaply available from the dollar store on the next block.
I’ve been looking at mineral samples in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, and became interested in epimorphs, minerals that form around another that then disappears. I was also reading a description of rock texture by Ruskin in which he describes the texture as being like sugar.
Excerpt from Modern Painters Vol 4: Of Mountain Beauty. p105