BUILT ON A SOLID FOUNDATION
Couple say there is a ‘spirit’ in the material they seek to channel in their designs
Naomi and Andreas Kunert are all about stone, and so is their Cowichan property on Vancouver Island.
Having spent years dreaming up unique landscapes and artwork, these partners in life and business get creative with everything from tiny golden tiger’s eye stones and opals from Australia, to granite blocks weighing tens of thousands of pounds. But they also have a softer side — an energetic awareness that lifts them above the rock-hard medium in which they labour.
It may seem incongruous at first, but the two explain there is a spirit in stone that they seek to channel, so it comes as no surprise to find they also have a sculpture of St. Catherine of Siena in their kitchen corner and a very large European altarpiece headboard in their bedroom.
The uniqueness of their home is evident the moment a visitor steps into the garden, where standing stones, granite boulders and crystal-filled rocks define the landscape.
These two wouldn’t even consider having a conventional fence. Instead, they created a stone hedge, a wall of solid basalt pillars trucked here from California, interspersed with colourful rock mosaics, all bordering a lawn of drought-resistant clover that stays green even in the driest summers.
It’s a slow process working with such large materials — the recycled columns were polished and ground for two days before being hoisted into place — but Andreas said he wanted to find a way to use materials that would otherwise be discarded.
The concept came to him after he learned about a popular trend in California, where the jet-black interiors of basalt pillars are sliced into thin strips and turned into windowsills.
“We decided to recycle the waste material, which is caved off the outside of this black interior.”
They continually seek other uses to pique the interests of the designers, builders, architects and engineers they work with.
Andreas has a passion for stone — he likes the way it requires endless patience and mindfulness to work and honour its “spirit” while creating pieces for both commercial and residential applications.
“What drives us is to make something unique,” Naomi said as she strolled through the outdoor landscape, which includes citrus, apple, plum, pear and other fruit trees, as well as a large vegetable garden.
Patting one of the obelisks, she explained that such pillars and rock mosaics are not only dramatic and interesting to look at, they absorb solar heat during the day and radiate it into the oneacre garden in the evening, making seating areas comfortable long after sunset.
She noted the pillars’ attractive tan and black striations come from oxidized metal, and the hexagonal shapes were formed when lava fell into the ocean and cooled suddenly, creating giant honeycomb structures on the ocean floor.
“It’s the same kind of stone found in the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland,” said Naomi, who always keeps stone close to her.
In the master bedroom, a large collection of semi-precious nuggets gleams on a dresser. On this day, Naomi was wearing a mother-of-pearl pendant, moonstone ring and iridescent labradorite earrings.
The Kunerts have collected materials from local riverbeds and B.C. quarries, as well as farther afield, from places such as California and South Dakota, where they are finishing a two-year project, said Andreas, who was born in Montreal but raised in Vermont near the mammoth Rock of Ages granite quarry.
He said images of the great stones he saw as a child are still locked in his memory. His 30-year career has taken him from the Sahara to the Swiss Alps, from the Grand Canyon to Australia.
He and Naomi have been together for seven years, although Naomi said she dreamed about him before they met.
She grew up on the Saskatchewan prairies, where she became fascinated by Cree art and archeology. The seventh of 11 children, she had a childhood full of storytellers, mythical imagery and music. She majored in fine arts at university and later moved into therapeutic teaching and working with First Nations people.
“My spiritual path is very eclectic.”
Both she and her husband carry this ethos into their work and aim to create healing pieces that strengthen and revitalize people’s connections to Earth.
Andreas experienced a healing himself several years ago.
Injured in a mountaineering incident in his early teens, he struggled for years with memory loss and other side effects. Naomi said she “helped to re-settle his nervous system and release the traumas that were trapped there.”
Since then, their creativity has taken off.
Their company, Ancient Art of Stone, is based in Duncan, but their work can be seen all around B.C., Saskatchewan, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, California and parts of Europe. Their pieces feature all types of materials, from green malachite and rose quartz to amethyst, clear Lemurian crystals, labradorite, aventurine, lapis lazuli and ocean jasper.
They build fireplaces, huge mosaic panels, front entryways and garden features, and are moving into a line of furniture combining live edge wood and stone art.
Their largest work, and the first public project they did together, is a 122-metre wall near the Four Mile Pub in View Royal that took two years. Another of their murals is in the Vancouver Island Conference Centre in Nanaimo.