QuarryConnection

stone fountains rock fountains natural stone fountains outdoor fountains indoor fountains water fountains rock water fountains stone water fountains outdoor water fountains indoor water fountains basalt fountains stone column fountains stone water features column water fountains natural stone column fountains rock column fountains stone candleholders rock candleholders natural rock candleholders natural stone candleholders

“Igneous Rock Gallery is a premier distributor of unique stone products - ours included. Their core specialty is custom designed natural rock water features but they are also out-front innovators in the development of new interior and exterior stone applications of all sorts. Robert Wertz’s passion for stone coupled with his extraordinary feel for color and the proper presentation of natural beauty make Igneous Rock Gallery designs superior in all regards. If you are looking for someone to entrust a special project Robert will certainly earn your admiration.”  Greg Precott - Geologist

Exclusive Access to Specimen Columns

Our awards have included "Best of Show" and "Best Sculpture". We were especially delighted by an award for our display at the Philadelphia International Flower Show. Of late we have been invited to present our fountain sculpture in art galleries. But we are most honored by a distinction conferred upon us by the geologists who quarry the Beaver Canyon andesite, our primary artistic medium.

They have awarded Igneous Rock Gallery exclusive access to the best stone columns that come from the site.
In their own words:

“You have done a superlative job of manifesting your unique vision of our stone in the fine contemporary water features you create. We appreciate your artistic dedication and wish to provide our most spectacular materials to you exclusively. In this fashion we are ensured they will be treated in a manner commensurate with their rarity and the difficulty we experience in winning them from this site.”

Residential Fountains

Gallery

Media

Igneous Rock Gallery has been featured in numerous magazines and publications as well as in various television news programs. Here is an archive of some of these articles.

Commercial Applications

About

The background story of the owner / artist, his introduction to and fascination with this rare and exotic medium, the birth of his vision, and the passion that drives his creativity.

$What Is Igneous Rock? Igneous rock is formed when molten or partially molten material, called magma, cools and solidifies. Igneous rocks are one of the three main types of rocks; the other types are sedimentary rocks and metamorphic rocks. Of the three types of rocks, only igneous rocks are formed from melted material. The word "igneous" is derived from the Latin ignis, meaning "fire", from which we also get the word “ignite”. About Beaver Canyon Andesite... Approximately 45 million years ago in a region now known as the Okanagan Highlands of Washington State a long and violent period of volcanic activity had begun to wane. The Earth's crust settled into new forms. Mountains arose where there had been none. Valleys opened where entire regions collapsed inwards upon themselves. Then, as a last memento of these colossal forces, a series of thin lava flows poured out onto this new landscape. In time these flows cooled and solidified to form solid rock, and as this occurred they cracked from internal stresses. These fractures often formed a repetitive symmetrical pattern much in the same manner that cracks develop in a thin layer of mud which dries and shrinks.$

$All typical stuff for the oft repeated cycle of crustal formation in our Earth.  However, in the Beaver Canyon area of this Okanagan Highlands Region something unusual happened, something which in fact has not been fully explained, something for which we can be eternally grateful because we now have access to the richly colorful and uniquely shaped columns quarried here and only here. Yes, the lavas cracked as expected, but the pattern of these fractures resulted in extraordinarily well formed stone columns which are unusually--extraordinarily--small in diameter, about four inches on average. Stone columns formed from cooling lavas are actually quite common, but one typically finds such columns as massive stone pillars twenty or more inches in diameter. Furthermore, the common stone columns are typically quite drab and exhibit only minor or subtle color variations of olive tones. But the Beaver Canyon stone columns exhibit an amazing palette of vibrant, diverse and unique colors inadequately described as champaign yellow, eggplant purple, rust and powder blue, not to mention the various hues of green, orange and grey. Further, the Beaver Canyon columns have interesting twists and curves we call “motion”, as opposed to the often pencil straight lines of their massive counterparts.$