Finding Art in the Hill Country's Drought I Texas Country Reporter

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:06][music] [music] >> 90% of my art that I do is found and I work just the 10%. I break it here or there, but pretty much is the way I found it.

[00:00:26]Every day Carlos Mosley looks for the same thing, that perfect rock.

[00:00:33]He's found it thousands of times before and it always looks a little different.

[00:00:38]Sometimes it's skinny, round, or flat, but every time it fits perfectly into his found rock folk art. I started doing faces.

[00:00:49]People's personalities.

[00:00:51]I did a little collection for our house and our friends. You should sell that and I start from there.

[00:01:01]The rock with a sandstone and the slate I done about 1,800 pieces and then [music] I done about 7,800 pieces of shadow boxes.

[00:01:17]So together 2,600 pieces.

[00:01:21]Carlos builds landscapes, animals, and whimsical characters entirely [music] out of un-sculpted rocks. Nature's already spent thousands of years shaping the elements of his art. Carlos begins each piece by walking the land at his hill country home. Recent droughts have uncovered a dry [music] riverbed overflowing with raw materials that Carlos [music] has spent a lifetime learning to spot.

[00:01:49]How long have you been looking for rocks like this? Well, uh actually all my life I've been collecting rocks. All your life? All my life.

[00:01:59]When I was a year old, that was my toys.

[00:02:02]Rocks? The sticks and rocks.

[00:02:05]Here we go. This can be a dog or a cat body right here.

[00:02:09]>> A dog or a cat body?

[00:02:11]>> That's right. All right, so maybe a tail here and and and a head here. Is that That's correct. I'm an artist. That's true.

[00:02:18]>> [laughter] >> Wow, you just don't know what you're going to find down here, huh? Right. A lot of surprises.

[00:02:25]>> A lots of surprise in this life.

[00:02:28]That's the beauty of life, right? All the surprises? All the surprises.

[00:02:35]10 years ago, I I never thought I was going to be a rock artist, right?

[00:02:40]And here you are. And now my wife said I have a lots of rocks in my head.

[00:02:45]>> [laughter] [music] >> Well, after he collects his materials, it's time to clean, sort, and catalog the find.

[00:03:03]Carlos has spent years working on his filing system, [music] dropping rocks into bins all over his garage and yard.

[00:03:13]What is all this, Carlos? This is my garden. Your garden? The [music] This is fire right here. They grow every day.

[00:03:20]This looks like flint here. Well, there's a lots of flint there. That's why I haven't paved the road because I find [music] every time it rains, I pick up all these pieces of flint and and this uh that I'm going to use in my art. That take years and years to have separate [snorts] the [music] pieces. So, when I'm looking for something, I go there and I'm going to find it. What is this piece [music] right here, Carlos? I I see something.

[00:03:52]There's already eyes on it.

[00:03:53]>> Well, there's going to be a dog.

[00:03:55]Looks like a dog.

[00:03:56]>> What What's this?

[00:03:58]So, you can see the >> [laughter] >> Let me find >> [laughter] >> That's great.

[00:04:08]>> Isn't that [music] great?

[00:04:10]His time investment pays off when creativity strikes. Artful designs tumble out of Carlos' fingertips in an avalanche of creativity.

[00:04:26]What is that going to be, Carlos? I don't see it.

[00:04:29]>> Do you have idea? None.

[00:04:32]Why not?

[00:04:34]>> [laughter] >> Well, I spent yesterday all day trying to pick up the the right pieces.

[00:04:43]You're going to see what is going to be here. I see a man.

[00:04:47]What's he doing?

[00:04:49]What do you think? Is it a golfer?

[00:04:52]That's what it's going to be.

[00:04:54]>> [laughter] >> With dozens of acres of land to search and hundreds of pounds of rocks to sort, Carlos Mosley has a lifetime of work ahead of him. This artist wouldn't have it any other way. Now that he's found his calling, he's happy just to share a small piece of beauty he wakes up to every morning.

[00:05:24]I love nature and always I will be in nature.

[00:05:29]I have trails in the property [music] and I walk in the mornings and I come ready to to start. You're excited about doing this. Real excited. Never been so excited in my life. My eyes they open and I appreciate life now more than ever.

[00:05:52]If you enjoyed that story as much as we did, hit that like button and please do subscribe so you can continue on this journey down the backroads of Texas.

[00:06:00]Meantime, my name is JB Sassada and this is Texas Country Reporter.