What arguably distinguishes Fossil Line among Long’s sculptures is the geological depth of the particular material. Wisconsin limestone of the Ordovician and Silurian periods carries within it the compressed remains of crinoids, brachiopods, and coral colonies — organisms that predate the emergence of land vertebrates. Long’s characteristic linear form, which recurs throughout his oeuvre as with Norfolk Flint Line, also in the Aardt Collection, here acquires a further temporal dimension. The line is not only a spatial gesture but a stratigraphic record, embedded in stone that formed roughly 425 million years ago. It is important to note, in this regard, that Long never cuts, knaps or sculpts the components of his works. Instead, he has explained that chooses them where found in a quarry or elsewhere, appropriating them as may be suitable to his purposes “visually, practically, historically, or intuitively.” In this case, Long has aligned the elements by juxtapositioning their naturally-occurring edges in such a way as to suggest a meandering, serpentine form, even utilizing a triangular stone placed where a snake’s head might be, a deftly composed work that allows for an imaginative bridge from the fossilized imprint of the simplest of ancient creatures to their creeping descendants.
