Bystanders at local construction sites might think he’s a bit bizarre. As a sculptor who shows up during excavations and scavenges for boulders to bring back to his Brooklyn Rockwerks studio in Bushwick, Adam Distenfeld says he often receives curious looks. But the final results are worth it.

You might have seen one of his zen-like fountains around New York. There’s one bubbling in the backyard of the Palo Santo restaurant in Park Slope, and one in the courtyard of the NY Adorned tattoo parlor in the East Village. He is also currently working on three pieces for private homes.

Their soft gurgling in the Rockwerks studio makes the industrial warehouse sound almost like a spa retreat. They can be just as pricey, too. Depending on the size and destination — Distenfeld and his assistants deliver and install the pieces themselves — a Rockwerks fountain can run anywhere from $500 to $10,000.

Fascinated by the interior of boulders and the study of topology, Distenfeld began making fountains as a natural outgrowth of his sculpture. With industrial drills, he extracts tunnels from granite, revealing the insides of these ancient rocks.

Brooklyn, coincidentally, is a great place for him to do this kind work. “What you have in Brooklyn is gneiss granite, which has a nice, orange rusted outside and inner gray color,” Distenfeld said. “And the rocks are more rounded because they were tumbled here by the glaciers,” during the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago.

“I didn’t want to go to a quarry and use a harvested stone. I wanted to take what comes out of the ground here.”

Find more pictures of Distenfeld’s work on the Brooklyn Rockwerks’ website, brooklynrockwerks.com

Sent by Sara.