As a young boy I visited the Museum of Lapidary Art in Elmhurst, Illinois (a long way from Brasil—I must confess that then I had no idea what or where Brasil was). I gathered stones on family vacations, from mountains and beaches and my grandparents farm. I loved and still do love the feel of smooth stones in my hands, their weight in my pockets.

It was years later—while studying in Salzburg, Austria—that I connected stones with art. Representational sculpture, masterpieces, scattered across the capital cities of Europe captured my interest and imagination.

Many years would pass before I would develop a connection to Brasil, to its people, cities, forests, music, and, perhaps most importantly, its joy and pain. While walking on an isolated beach two years ago, Denise Milan and I spoke of stone: the stories they tell, the mysteries they conceal. The artist can transform the stone—a chisel can render a face, a human form.

We spoke of the blue stone. The sky is blue, the sea is blue. Both are ever changing. From our conversation on the beach that day, what interested me most was the space between the sea and the sky. Space. It's the space between spaces—Marcel Duchamp's “infraslim"—that intrigues and engages. The “infraslim" is where we pass this journey called life.

Denise chose not to manipulate the blue stone. She found a stone, a stone too large to put in her pocket. Now this stone occupies a place where many may encounter and experience its energy. The stone remains but continues to change. Change energizes. Change is our only certainty.

The blue stone is about our past, our present, our future. It reflects the spaces we know and those we have not yet encountered. The joy of life is the “infraslim"—the space that exists between two spaces.

Greg Cameron, Associate Director, Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago