Upon entering I Love Rocks on the corner of East 15th and Oak, the first thing you’ll notice is the hundreds of rocks, from dull grey ones to vibrant gems and crystals. Each one has a little tag with its name and — often — its “metaphysical properties.”
But Crowbar (as he insists on being called), owner of the I Love Rocks collection, doesn’t adhere to the school of thought that a bit of labradorite by the bed will make you feel fresher in the morning. He just really loves rocks.
Then why the metaphysical tags? The answer lies in I Love Rocks’s business model. It’s a non-profit, net-neutral business, and all the workers are unpaid volunteers who “take it upon themselves to give to the business in the way they see the most apt.” As such, the tags on the rocks reflect the beliefs of whichever volunteer made it.
Barr and his co-workers constantly buy new rocks, and they have inventory from “anywhere you can name,” as Crowbar puts it. They even have rocks from the disputed tribal regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, one of the hardest places in the world to access.
But this constant drive to obtain new and exciting rocks means I Love Rocks currently has approximately 2,000 pounds of unsold rocks sitting in a storage room in the back of the building.
They’ll sell them off in a yard sale this Sunday, August 21.
“We have so much more rock than we can display,” Crowbar said. “The yard sale’s just us continuing our business model of slinging rock on the corner.”
More than 250 people have clicked “attending” on the yard sale’s Facebook event page, and 1,100 more are “interested.” Rocks are clearly on a lot of people’s minds in this town.
One may wonder what draws people to rocks, especially people like Crowbar who aren’t too keen on their supposed benefits. Crowbar has clearly given it a lot of thought.
“Every rock is individual, just like every person I’ve ever met,” he said. “If you treat a person poorly, just like if you treat a rock poorly it’ll come out looking worse. If you smash a quartz crystal there’ll be all these sharp bits, like if you have a friend and you emotionally break them, you have a lot of sharp bits. Rocks are a good reminder of what we need to do to be good people.”
He first discovered the joy of rocks growing up in fossil-rich southern Indiana, where he and his siblings would collect fossilized sea sponges and smash them open.
“The fact that we were three days away from the ocean and we were smashing sea fossils opened up my whole perspective,” Barr said. “I think nature makes the most beautiful art and i see the rock store as an art gallery for rocks.”
