More than meets the eye
Bolinas Museum exhibit reveals the ‘Stories Within Rocks’
Rob Gailey has nothing but fond memories of the Bolinas Museum. It’s where he brought his two kids on weekends, watching them be amazed by the historical photos of kids, similar to them, that often hung in the History Room. It’s where his son later exhibited his own work and where his daughter did some of her public service internship in high school.
Gailey, who has worked as a hydrogeologist since 1985, mainly on projects in the western United States, never imagined he’d find his way to the museum, let alone any at all. But, that changed this month, with the opening of “Photomicrographs Reveal Stories Within Rocks,” the part-time Bolinas resident’s work that melds art and science. The seven pieces in the exhibit, which runs through March 31, capture the dazzling images of thin slices of rock he cut — like red chert — and then digitally photographed using his petrographic microscope.
“I loved the concept of Rob Gailey’s photos from the moment
he first showed me a phone snapshot of one, especially because they are found in such ordinary-looking local rocks from the diverse trove of San Francisco Bay Area geology,” says Elia Haworth, the exhibit’s curator. “Gailey has composed these photomicrographic images by finding details that are both scientifically
and artistically interesting — just as a photographer selects an area or crops a photo to present a specific composition. His images of rocks appear as abstract art, yet to a Gailey’s geologist eye, each image tells a vivid story that he shares with us — of millions of years of geologic change. Our museum staff has been delighted
to see visitors’ reactions to the exhibition — fascination, surprise and curiosity to learn more.”
The geologist will discuss his work and the process of making it, as well as the geologic stories behind the featured images, at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Bolinas Museum at