Our first Blog post by intern Tommy Finton!

When most people think about art, da Vinci and Michelangelo come to mind: painters and sculptors. Well, there is one artist who seems to be under-appreciated when it comes to fine art. Mother Nature is perhaps the best artist of all, and I was witness to that when I visited the Aquilino Cancer Center at Adventist Hospital, Shady Grove and saw the 2,200-pound boulder. I walked into the unfinished room and saw three bulky men attach straps around the behemoth and lift it with a lever. I have never seen a piece require so much maintenance before; the straps had to be in the right place so that the boulder would lift easily.

With Mother Nature’s keen eye for art, and a few sticks of dynamite, a construction team was able to isolate a piece from a quarry and send it as is to the meditation room at the soon-to-be-finished center. There are no conceived angles and lines; the boulder is going into that center as Mother Nature intended it. Stoic yet contemplative, this large piece of rock is the perfect addition to the room. Although quite large, it does not distract people. It quietly sits there hoping to inspire others and add to the overall ambiance.

Now, I am quite new to the professional art world, having been Lillian’s intern for a little over a month, and I am already seeing new things everyday. I have taken many art classes in the past, both in the creation and study of the subject, and I have to say that this enormous boulder is the first natural object that has been described to me as art. In all of my Art History books, not once did I see Victoria Falls, the Nile, or Ha Long Bay mentioned for its beauty. Nature being left out of my textbooks is like Babe Ruth being picked last to join a team. Mother Nature has been an artist for 4.5 billion years, and it’s wonderful to see Shady Grove and Lillian put a rock in the center. There is nothing to interpret; there is nothing to learn. It may just be a rock, but it is also art. Art is all around us and sometimes we choose just to see that which is carved, painted, or filmed. We live in a beautiful world and Shady Grove is creating a fantastic center that will have a piece of Mother Nature’s collection. So, to those who will be meditating, enjoy the boulder, for you will be in the presence of true art.