Photo 1: ‘Balancing Rocks, Sculpture I’ - from bottom to top, San Francisco, Portugal, Japan, Canary Islands, Auvergne, Belgium.
Photos 2 & 3: ‘Balancing Rocks, Sculpture II’ - from bottom to top: Normandy (2), Portugal, Rome, Ottawa, Finland.
Photo 4: Stacked Rocks Cascais.

My mother is from the east coast of Canada, Newfoundland to be exact, also known as ‘the rock’. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of sitting on those rocky beaches, and dipping my toes into the icy Atlantic.

As an adult, I discovered that I’m not alone in my love of rocks and whenever friends travel, I ask them to bring me a wee bit of the place they’ve visited. I find it fascinating that while the rocks are all different, they are also fundamentally the same, just like us. And down through the ages, through different cultures, stacked rocks have meant so much. They have served as navigation aids, marked sacred spaces, and paid tribute to those we have lost.

The rocks in the photos are all carefully balanced, and the photos took many hours as even a slight shift could knock them all tumbling down. Which country fit best with which was often not obvious.