Watersides have a magical atmosphere—jumping into the soothing water, floating, swimming towards the light or just staring into the distance from the shore are undoubtedly some of my favourite activities just like carefully analysing washed-up pebbles, marine debris and animals by myself. I also love stumbling upon people that make me say “If I had another life, I’d love to do what they do”. This is exactly how I felt about Avery as soon as I saw the magic that she does with pebbles.
Where do you keep the pebbles you collect? Do you store all of them?
My collection is always waxing and waning—on any excursion, I keep about 5% of what I pick up; only my very favourite stones. These get sorted into many boxes. The smaller the box, the more precious the contents. Some are in old wine crates, some are in handmade art boxes and some in plain cardboard. Stones that are too large for a box get a place on the mantle or on my nightstand. Some I use as doorstops.
I am in a constant state of intended shrinkage: I sort my collection obsessively and have had to teach myself to "retire" stones that no longer meet the criteria for my artwork. In any given year I try to return about half of what I have collected to the earth if I am able to access the original location. I have had some pebbles in my collection for more than 25 years and they hold a lot of my early childhood memories—they are the first thing I would save in a house fire, after my dog.
How can you describe the feeling of exploring the shores, and collecting pebbles?
Empty-headedness. Collecting pebbles has become a walking meditative practice for me, a time to disconnect from reality and exist only in the exterior world. I am very happy to plod along a beach for hours, head down, thinking of nothing but what is in my field of vision.
When did this journey start? What do you want to convey?
I've been collecting rocks since I could walk. I have early memories of picking up stones in my grandparents' orchard in Ojai, on Catalina Island, in Big Bear, and in the Cleveland Metroparks. My dad was usually the one that had to cart several pounds of rocks back from family trips (thank you, Dad). I have always been drawn to the earth and grew up a shy, anxious kid. I found picking up and handling stones became a way to ground myself.
My practice showcases and celebrates the material the earth unconsciously creates by putting it in an artistic context. By displaying humble natural materials (earth, stone, soil) in their most elevated form, I hope to bring a sense of appreciation for nature, even to those that might not inherently feel connected to the natural world.
Is there a scientific approach to this activity, or do you see it as a hobby?
My style of rock curation is geology-adjacent (i.e. searching scientific databases for mineral deposits, looking up fossil beds, retroactively googling chemical compositions of stones), but mostly passively. I am drawn much more to the aesthetics and tactility of the pebbles I pick up and the mental quietness I find while collecting and sorting. The only exception would be petrified wood - it is one of my favourite things to find, mostly because each deposit is so unique. Ocean-tumbled petrified wood is so different from agatized wood from the Arizona desert, which is wildly different from the petrified palms of the Southern US, and so on. I don't have any formal way of categorizing or identifying any of the stones I find, but it is humbling to imagine that each existed for millennia before I was born and will continue to exist for millennia after I am gone. I think of myself as a curator—I present bits and pieces of earth in their best light in an artistic format.
Avery Gregory | Instagram
This article was first published in print in 2023, in issue 8 of Hype&Hyper.
the cōmodo | Summer getaway in the Austrian Alpes
In the embrace of reality and imagination
