Stone Quarry Art Park is a landscape of process. Artworks come and go as artists collaborate with the grounds. Below are the current works on site. Works are arranged by their location in the park.
Map
Hilltop
Slow Reveal was part of the 2020 exhibition Personal Programs. The work comprises 26 cast concrete structures that mimic tree stumps. Slow Reveal inscribes a circle on the hilltop, but the circle cannot be viewed in its entirety, hence the work invites a slow study of the environs. Waale states, "This sculpture, like much of my artwork, arises out of one particular experience I had when I was young. My grandfather pointed to a very small patch of earth on his Minnesota farm—just inches square—and we closely examined it, calling out everything we saw. It was a surprisingly formative experience that revealed what was hidden in plain sight and made me—at the time a small human—aware of my large footprint and that I was part of a world more significant and substantial than myself. This experience in focused awareness of the natural world informs this sculpture which offers the viewer places to sit and observe, and be present."
By combining clay loam topsoil, lime, and water, shoveling the mixture into molds, and tamping, Xinan Ran and collaborator Sarah Lammer created 3D letters on three sites on the grounds. The sculptural texts, "hurry", "worrying and wondering", and "wingwoman", are drawn from Ran's ongoing collection of overheard conversations, internet reviews, and found text. Visitors are encouraged to take selfies with the ground texts. Read an interview with the artist to learn more about this work.
Patrick Costello has made visible the interconnected process of art-making by gathering fellow artists, volunteers, farmers, carpenters, and friends to join in constructing the sculptural work AND EAT IT TOO. A monumental, composting structure of plants, hay, wood chips, and elephant dung, AND EAT IT TOO finds joy in our being part of the ecosystem, explores the many relationships we have to land, and invites the notion that we are creatures of joy, pleasure, and decay. Read more about the process of making this work that is actively composting on the grounds.
Ide is a sound and visual artist who creates multi-faceted sculptures. Ide creates works based on the Japanese idea of impermanence, "Life is fleeting, therefore, life is beautiful."
Commissioned artist and Rhode Island-based artist Ti Dinh made new railings for the park in 2024. The railings include mounts for small ceramic works that are informed by the artist's Vietnamese heritage. Brown patterned ceramics emerged from after Vietnam's hard-fought independence in the 11th-19th centuries. The loose and free style symbolizes resistance, often depicting the people and strategies used to defend their homeland. Unaware of this tradition, Dinh had been creating similar ceramics for months. Touched by this ancestral connection while filled with grief over Gazans, she chose these ceramics as vessels for modern histories of resistance.
Vandenbrouke describes her work as "a strong presence...that looks like it is (or has once been) alive." She describes how people encounter her sculpture as "the feeling that you just missed seeing it move the moment you turned your head. Viewers often want to touch the work to follow its curves, relating to it physically as well as visually."
The champagne company Perrier-Jouet partnered with artist Michael Kalish to create this interpretation of a beautiful garden. The sculpture was an homage to the iconic Perrier-Jouet Epoque bottle motif.
Mack was a renowned sculptor and Syracuse University professor. He was inspired by “everyday experiences, from the shape of a shadow to a musical composition.” Mack was a close friend of the Art Park founders Dorothy and Bob Riester, and several of his sculptures are on the grounds. Jazz Diz references trumpeter Dizzie Gillespie, known for his layers of harmony and complex improvisation.
Nelson is a self-taught artist who began sculpting in her retirement. Nelson’s abstract sculptures play with the curve and twist of a line and bright, bold colors.
Brzezinski is internationally acclaimed for her monumental wood sculptures. She uses a chainsaw, ax, and chisel to breathe new life into found wood. “My work is always a process of discovery and experimentation.” As she works on her sculptures, Brzezinski learns more about the structure and individuality of each piece of wood.
Hall’s The Fall of Disco Mickey is the artist’s reaction to the destruction of cultural icons. Hall typically creates his “big and theatrical” works from cardboard. Here, Hall juxtaposes the permanence of an American icon with its material existence. “[Mickey] lies half buried and abandoned but still holds his concrete smile…the sky becomes ground and the ground silhouetted against the sky.”
Art Park founder Dorothy Riester described Contemplating Man as "a thinking, quiet, content soul gazing out on his domain." The sculpture was a tribute to her husband and fellow founder, Bob. This work is one of many of Dorothy's works on view on the grounds.
Hilltop House was started in 1959, and initially designed as a seasonal home. After purchasing additional acreage in 1961, the Riesters constructed an access road allowing the type of maintenance needed to live year-round in the home. The iconic A-Frame studio was built in 1962. With construction of the road and winterizing of the home in 1965, expanding the footprint of the home became possible. Dorothy designed and had constructed the second portion of the Hilltop House, the Library, in 1969-70. An extended entryway built in 1970, referred to as the “Genkong” by Dorothy, was inspired by travels to Japan.
The A-Frame Studio currently houses Stone Quarry's administrative office.
Gonzales sited his large arching sculpture in a place of prominence on the Hilltop. It is visible from the park’s entrance and serves to orient visitors as they traverse the trails. “Gnomen” refers to the metal finger of a sundial. This metal finger casts a shadow onto a surface indicating the time of day by the position of the sun. The sundial dates to ancient Egypt, 1500 BCE.
Rose is a multi-disciplinary, Syracuse-based artist working in the fields of public art, sculpture, and custom fabrication. His sculptures aim to foster “place-based identity.” Working mostly in concrete, steel, and wood, Rose often incorporates found objects in his sculptures. Rose also created Pierre, the sculptural figure that holds the admission box at the park’s entrance.
Katzen, a prolific painter, became interested in sculpture later in her career. She focused on Minimalism and human interaction in her sculptures. Fanned Arena consists of both weathered steel and satin finish stainless steel. Katzen's works can be found in collections throughout the United States including the Everson Museum, Grounds for Sculpture, De Cordova, and the National Gallery of Art.
Gillespie, a ceramic artist, picks titles for his sculptures that are playful in nature. Ambiguous can suggest uncertain, confusing, or unequivocal. Unbalance suggests distortion, destabilization, or to throw into disarray. The work was discovered by Joel Potash and Sandra Hurd while Gillespie was exhibiting the work at SUNY Fredonia. Each winter, the ceramic vessels are removed and stored indoors.
Vraag is hibernating for the winter. They will return to the grounds come spring! Vraag, meaning 'question' in the Dutch language, is the Art Park's roaming question of a creature. Vraag hibernates in the winter and returns unexpectedly in warmer weather. Vraag's maker chooses to remain anonymous to allow this curiosity-invoking creature a wondering life of Vraag's own.
Upper & Lower Meadow
By combining clay loam topsoil, lime, and water, shoveling the mixture into molds, and tamping, Xinan Ran and collaborator Sarah Lammer created 3D letters on three sites on the grounds. The sculptural texts, "hurry", "worrying and wondering", and "wingwoman", are drawn from Ran's ongoing collection of overheard conversations, internet reviews, and found text. Visitors are encouraged to take selfies with the ground texts. Read an interview with the artist to learn more about this work.
worrying and wondering is located on the large mowed grassy hillside.
wingwoman is located near the midpoint of the entrance drive, on the left side of the field.
All Creations is a collaboration of artists Matt Rink and Bland Hoke. Interested in promoting sustainability in the arts, the artists utilized 60 decommissioned lamp posts reconfigured as tripods to create Third Iteration. This sculpture represents a unique iteration and repetition of a similar form. Because of high winds and sunlight, the fabric will be de-installed and re-imagined in another material in the coming years.
Sister Cistern is a glazed hand built ceramic arched pillar, featuring two heads of Medusa. This monumental sculpture measures 12 feet high and built with two tons of architectural stoneware. The sculpture references caryatids—architectural pillars cast in the likeness of women. These structural supports reduce the human figure to decoration, objectifying the body. The work subverts the vertical strength of a classical caryatid pillar by rounding the erect column into a portal. This reorganization of form is self-supporting—the columns no longer uphold the structure above, instead creating an opportunity to move through rather than under.
The project developed from a fascination with the Medusa columns in Istanbul’s Basilica Cistern, a remarkable example of ornamental ancient plumbing. The face of each Medusa houses hand washing spigots to wash away the societal ills this mythological figure represents. Religions have linked hygiene to morality since the dawn of civilization, such as the proverb “cleanliness is next to godliness.” Without ornamentation, such as the polished white porcelain toilet, our grotesque natures wouldn't appear so elegant. By inviting viewers to wash their hands, our flamboyant arched sink becomes an arena to reiterate a connection between hierarchy and hygiene.
The unique opportunity to install this work outdoors removes the column from its architectural context and situates the project in the landscape of Stone Quarry Art Park, which includes the story of Mary Hackley. At a time when women were unable to purchase property, Mary Hackley was able to acquire this tract of land as a widow and clear out cisterns for water access. In constructing Sister Cistern, we are honoring the unseen labor of past generations of women.
To Have and To Home is hibernating for the winter. It will return to the grounds in the spring.
The Queendom Trail is part of a Dr. Rogers' in-process play Queendom. The trail is marked by small signs each with quotes from the play. Queendom explores the dream and possibility of reparations and conceptualizes the promise of “40 acres and a mule.” Forty acres of land and a mule were to be bestowed upon enslaved peoples that were freed in America in the reparations package approved by President Lincoln’s administration; it was a promise later retracted after Lincoln’s assassination. In Queendom, Dr. Rogers imagines a world where enslaved peoples are granted resources and funds to help establish lives in America, post-slavery.
Aoyagi, an internationally renowned Japanese artist, used the earth's elements to create Flow. She selected this location in the park by dowsing, a process of using a y-shaped stick to locate a high-water table. Her intention of excavating the land was "to soften the earth and to release the energy beneath. I wanted to explore the connection between this place and the other side of the world."
Piney Woods
Lipski was one of the first visiting artists to create a piece on site at the Art Park. "Induction" means "bringing about or giving rise to something." The work is made of old farm equipment, making the title fitting as the artist gave the machinery a new purpose.
Upper and Lower Exit Field
This work will be remade this coming summer. Stay tuned!
Gentner's metalsmithing, furniture design, and sculpture intersects art and design disciplines. Untitled was created iteratively with cutting, bending, and assembling metal.
The 220 saplings, donated by U-CAN and planted in late spring of 2020 and added to in 2021, will grow to capture carbon— an action to prevent the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere— to support wildlife and mitigate contributions to global warming. The arrangement of trees in the park, designed by graduate students in SUNY ESF's landscape architecture program, offer an aesthetic and sensory journey, turning trees and landscape into an experiential art installation. Watch the saplings grow, snugly wrapped in a protective tree tubes that dot the landscape with bright spots of blue.
Secret Garden & Roadside Meadow
Super Natural is a new work by 2022 visiting artist Jen Dawson. Dawson employs materials with the capacity to carry loaded meanings around gender, race, and sexuality. Super Natural contains 30 pounds of braided steel wool that will rust and change over time, which challenges the implied permanence of sculpture.
Frazier created Effendi as both sculpture and gazebo. "Effendi" is a Turkish title of respect, often used for an educated man. Prominent in Asia, most latticework is ornamental, but can also be used to let air into a room while redirecting sunlight. When sunlight comes through the latticework patterns are created by the shadows.
North Hill
Oliver believes sculpture should be something that "directly interacts with the world." Path Shed sits just below Picnic Hill and connects field to forest. Located in an ecotone, it serves as a transition between two different plant communities. Path Shed is a bridge between "architecture and nature, preservation and neglect, order and entropy."
East Meadow
Weber's sculptural practice is about transformation. In Tile Cone Stacks, he transforms a commonly used building material and offers a new perspective. The placement of these objects reveals the human intervention or agency behind the manifestation of materials in and as landscape. Weber's "sculptural activities investigate the expressive trace of natural phenomena and of human presence."