Return to Stone by Carolyn Schmitz

Carolyn Schmitz · Return to Stone

October 24, 2025 – January 9, 2026
Natural History Institute Gallery
Open Tuesday–Friday, Noon–4 PM
Free and open to the public

Before humans ever walked the Earth, the rocks were already here, silent witnesses to time and transformation. In Return to Stone, artist Carolyn Schmitz turns from paint and canvas to celebrate her lifelong fascination with the “ordinary” stones she has collected and studied for decades.

From simple fieldstones emerge imaginative worlds—tiny cities, factories, machines, and faces—each assembled without cutting or reshaping the stones themselves. Schmitz’s playful yet contemplative creations invite us to reflect on both the permanence and impermanence of the human impulse to build, and nature’s reminder that all things return to the Earth.

Exhibition Events

Opening Reception: Friday, October 24 · 5–7 PM

Artist Talk with Carolyn Schmitz: Thursday, November 20 · 7 PM · Register Here

Fourth Friday Art Walk: Friday, November 28 · 5–7 PM

Winter Solstice Open House: Saturday, December 13 · 1–3 PM

Join us for any or all of these opportunities to experience this imaginative and deeply grounded exhibition by artist Carolyn Schmitz.

Artist Statement:

“This show features rocks, instead of my usual work in paint on canvas. It’s a first time departure, probably because I have amassed thousands of rocks over the years. Before we humans evolved to inhabit the Earth, along with the plants and other animals, the rocks were already here. I collected many of these little pieces of the Earth to admire and study.

Rocks have always been like favorite companions. Mine are not the showy beauties seen at gem and mineral shows. They are the “ordinary” rocks, with shapes, colors, patterns, and textures that tell their stories. They could be actors in a grand play, as we are.

One of my smaller rocks resembled a farmhouse, so I gave it a tiny rock chimney and painted windows. Over the next 2 decades, this practice had grown. I made skyscrapers, houses, churches, factories–structures of all kinds, even heavy machinery like bulldozers and WWII tanks, and just for fun, chairs and cowboys. (A good human face rock is a rarity!) Thousands of rocks in geometric shapes were necessary, so organization was crucial. It was important to leave the rocks as they are, without changing them with invasive power tools. (Hadn’t they been through enough?) Altogether, making rock stuff was an addictive ritual of Find, Compose, and Glue. Like a kid playing at architecture without any stress or technical burdens.

Looking at all these structures and machines made from stones reminds us that the real ones that humans have made will change. The forces that created the Earth can also take them away. But there’s a cholla tree in bloom, telling us that new life forms may emerge. What will they be like?”

—Carolyn Schmitz

Carolyn Schmitz was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and moved with her family to the mountains outside Prescott, Arizona, in 1952. Drawing, painting, and sculpting from an early age, she completed foundation courses at the Kansas City Art Institute before earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic design from Arizona State University. For nearly 30 years, she lived in the raw desert near Phoenix, working as a freelance illustrator and muralist, before returning to her forest home.

Carolyn’s small, whimsical portraits of the wildlife of the American West are known for their intricate botanical detail. Her line of greeting cards, Desert Dada, has shared the subtle beauties of the arid Southwest with people around the world, inspiring them to discover the hidden treasures in their own local habitats.