Joseph Conrad Stone Cutter
Joseph Conrad has worked & played in the stone industry for fifty years. From architectural drafting to quarrying to stone installations to founding a stone fabrication business to stone exploring and eventually to sculpture. His blog shares his lifetime of experience. It is meant to make the urban landscape understandable to everyone. He hopes to help provide a sense of place in the urban environment by providing his insights on stone history & fabrication.
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
My Blog Archive - Scroll down to view the List of My Blog Articles to Date
I have posted
ten essays on stone sculpture:
1 Some photos of my stone
sculpture are shown on Joseph Conrad Sampler
2 A video which seems to
have been viewed by 56,000 on YouTube, titled SPLITTING AND CUTTINGSTONE, which is an ever-popular subject
3 The essay titled WHATMAKES STONE SCULPTURE SPECIAL is a general overview, which
differentiates the general forms we call sculpture and describes the
uniqueness of stone sculpture and the people who do it, as well as
why they do it.
4 The essay titled HOWARE YOU INSPIRED addresses one of the most commonly asked questions
to the stone carver. In it I describe how different artists approach
their art, and more specifically how I am inspired by stone with its
limitations and possibilities.
5 To more deeply
understand the process of stone carving read THE MAKING OF MY DAVID,
which is a photographic narrative with descriptions of all the
emotional and physical properties that go into making a serious art
piece.
6 To get a feeling for
what I experience when people come to my stone carving studio in
Portland, Oregon, read my title TWENTY FREQUENT QUESTIONS ASKED BYVISITORS TO THE REMNANT YARD and TWENTY QUESTIONS I WOULD LIKE PEOPLE
TO ASK ME when they visit the stone yard.
7 8 9 To see the joy of
sourcing the marble I carve, read three blogs titled THERE'S MARBLE
IN THEM THERE ISLANDS (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3), a personal journey into the rain forest of
S.E. Alaska, looking for historic marbles that were used to build
San Francisco and other historic cities in the west.
10 Can local stone and local stone sculptors overcome the "Italian Mystique"?
10 Can local stone and local stone sculptors overcome the "Italian Mystique"?
I also have published 10 essays on stone history and
technology:
1 WHY BLOG is a primer on
the stone industry. In it I describe the various roles in stone
quarrying and fabrication. It is a simplified overview to introduce
the reader to the world of stone.
2 THE LOST TRADE OFSTONECUTTING has been read by 20,000 readers in three publications,
my most widely read essay. People seem to enjoy history and
descriptions of historic processes. In it I use Portland as an
example but it could be set in most cities in this country. I would
like to do one in San Francisco, the place my father learned his
stone cutting trade in 1920.
3 STONECUTTERS URBANECOLOGY 101 is a visual and descriptive process of the four major
advances in the stone industry that have defined our modern urban
nomenclature, intended to make the urban dweller more comfortable
with his surroundings – what has been described by academics as a
sense of place
4 FORM AS A RESULT OFHISTORIC PROCESS is method of describing how architectural forms may
have evolved from practical solutions to engineering and fabrication
problems, hopefully one doesn’t have to remember all the
architectural terms to enjoy architecture. It's sort of an
architectural description by the craftsmen as opposed then the
academic community.
5 6 7 8 A LOCAL BUSINESS
IS BORN (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) is a four-part, but still incomplete, story of building a
marble business in Portland from 1968 to1993. More work needs to be
done to complete the story. It has also been nationally published and
widely read. My son needs to finish the next chapters. I think it
would make an excellent PHD economic study for local industry for
someone, someday. A local industry that grew from half a dozen people
to 500 people in 30 years due to improvements in gang sawing
technology overseas, creating local high skill fabrication jobs.
9 STONECUTTERS PROVIDETHE HUMAN TOUCH was published in a national magazine in 1996. It
describes a process I called inside-out design in the design and
fabrication of marble tabernacle to go with a historic altar in a
Catholic church.
10 HEROES OF LOCALKNOWLEDGE was published in a local, progressive magazine titled
OREGON'S FUTURE. It describes what is lost to a community when local
trades are lost to imported goods and services.
11 LUCKY TO GET IT discusses quality in stone fabrication.
12. SPLITTING AND CUTTING STONE: My First YouTube video, which has been viewed over 56,000 times.
13. SPLITTING, CUTTING, AND SCULPTING STONE: My Second YouTube video, which has been viewed over 200 times.
11 LUCKY TO GET IT discusses quality in stone fabrication.
12. SPLITTING AND CUTTING STONE: My First YouTube video, which has been viewed over 56,000 times.
13. SPLITTING, CUTTING, AND SCULPTING STONE: My Second YouTube video, which has been viewed over 200 times.
Four
anecdotal stories about the stone industry:
2 HOWARD THE ONE HUNDREDPOUND MUSCLE MAN, stone handling at its finest
3 MY FRIEND PETE, the old
Italian stone master
I have also written 45
short essays on http://growingupinminnesota.blogspot.com
Stearns County, the center of the granite industry in the United
States that may be of interest
JOSEPH CONRAD, FEBRUARY 2013
A List of My Blog Articles to date
My Apprenticeship in the Stone Business
Lucky to Get It
The Alaska Marble Story
The Italian Mystique Provides a Bump - But Does Local Stone Speak to You?
How Are You Inspired?
Twenty frequent comments from visitors at my stone yard
New Joseph Conrad Sampler
Why Blog About Stone?
Stonecutters Urban Ecology 101: Urban Therapy
Form as a Result of Historic Process
The Lost Trade of Stone Cutting
Some Bits of Advice Given Me by Stone People
Howard, the One Hundred Thirty Pound Muscle Man
Stonecutters Provide the Human Touch
There's Marble in Them There Islands (Part 1)
There's Marble in Them There Islands (Part 2)
There's Marble in Them There Islands (Part 3)
What Makes Stone Sculpture Special?
The Making of My “David"
The State of the Arts
Things Are Different in Mexico
A Local Business is Born – Part 1
A Local Business is Born – Part 2
A Local Business is Born – Part 3
A Local Business is Born – Part 4
Heroes of Local Knowledge
My first YouTube video: Splitting & Cutting Stone
Commercial Work
The Inspection
The State of The Arts
My Friend Pete
Custom Fabrication
My Dad the Stonecutter
Lucky to Get It
The Alaska Marble Story
The Italian Mystique Provides a Bump - But Does Local Stone Speak to You?
How Are You Inspired?
Twenty frequent comments from visitors at my stone yard
New Joseph Conrad Sampler
Why Blog About Stone?
Stonecutters Urban Ecology 101: Urban Therapy
Form as a Result of Historic Process
The Lost Trade of Stone Cutting
Some Bits of Advice Given Me by Stone People
Howard, the One Hundred Thirty Pound Muscle Man
Stonecutters Provide the Human Touch
There's Marble in Them There Islands (Part 1)
There's Marble in Them There Islands (Part 2)
There's Marble in Them There Islands (Part 3)
What Makes Stone Sculpture Special?
The Making of My “David"
The State of the Arts
Things Are Different in Mexico
A Local Business is Born – Part 1
A Local Business is Born – Part 2
A Local Business is Born – Part 3
A Local Business is Born – Part 4
Heroes of Local Knowledge
My first YouTube video: Splitting & Cutting Stone
Commercial Work
The Inspection
The State of The Arts
My Friend Pete
Custom Fabrication
My Dad the Stonecutter
LUCKY TO GET IT
I looked on the
internet recently, and found the close to 200 advertisers are listed
in Portland area, most of them stating they specialize in quality
stone counters. Times have certainly changed.
When I moved to
Portland in 1968, 46 years ago, there was one stone fabrication
company, that took care of the entire state, as well as southern
Washington state. It employed six people including two man who only
worked on memorials. If you needed some slab marble or granite work
done it was sawed by Art Lear our foreman, machine polished by Howard
Coleman, the edges were finished by Cal Mickalson with a belt sander,
and measured up by the new kid, me. It was installed by one of five
union marble setters who worked by the job, most often my mentor,
Pete Rigguto. [ These five marble setters had nothing to do with
local fabrication in that they strictly were stone installers, a
special branch of union brick layers that installed prefabricated
stone mostly on high rise commercial buildings ]. That was the total
fabrication and instillation team in 1968 in Portland Oregon, a city
with a population of maybe one million in the metropolitan area. Our
foreman Art Lear told me when I gave him the information on the first
job I measured up, that it was the first shop ticket he fully
understood in 40 years. This wonderful man had a way of making you
feel good, as well as himself by stopping by the Elks Lodge every
night on the way home before dinner. In these less stressful times,
Art summed up the QUALITY issue of every job with LUCKY TO GET IT.
When I talk to Bob Skull the structural engineer, who still attends
the Elks lodge 46 years later, he reminisces that the local
fabrication team , Art, Howard, Cal, myself and Pete doing every job
twice, and still making money.
We felt like
top notch quality team, when the stone fabricator, from Seattle came
to Portland, he told me he didn’t even have a surface polisher
Likely QUALITY in those days in Seattle involved pretty much taking
the stone the way you get it. Same thing, LUCKY TO GET IT. We
actually seemed to do quite good work considering the tools and stone
variety’s we had at that time. What we lacked in tools and I think
we made up in personal service and concern for the customer. Which
proves theirs a lot to be said for the same person, listening to what
the customer wants and advising him as to the best way to achieve the
results, and fallowing through until jobs completion. I found out
early on, in custom fabrication, subdividing and handing out
different parts of a job for the sake of economic gain leads to
customer dissatisfaction. Or lack of QUALITY. Unfortunately I don’t
have photos, but I am sure there are a lot of fireplaces, and bath
vanities, still around Portland, resulting from our efforts.
The word
QUALITY, is a lot like defining the third person of Christian dogma
THE HOLY SPIRIT, everyone says they have it, but no one can define
it. It just is, in the mind of the individual, who declares he has it
. As stated, looking on the internet in Portland, you will in 2014
find, about 200 stone advertisers who tell you they specialize in
QUALITY kitchen counters. All these QUALITY people have entered the
stone fabrication business in the last 15 years and are ready to
serve your custom stone fabrication needs. The old LUCKY TO GET IT
DAYS are apparently over for Portland. But are they, I tend tend to
think all these folk declaring themselves as Quality providers are
much like religious zealots, declaring they have the truth.
These are deep
waters, were few care to swim, but I will continue on this subject of
QUALITY stone fabrication, because as a friend of my says, its what I
want to do. I expect few readers, since one one who ever fabricated
or installed or purchased a stone counter, could bring himself to
question the quality of their project. Often, the only way define
Quality, is to identify whats missing if there seems to be a lack of
quality. . Maybe a weak method but no one has come up with a better
one. Kind like me defining the quality of a figure skating event, I
think I know a good one, but can only describe a lesser one by
intangible things like poise, or, bad jumps, mis-timed music, etc.
So let's
describe what might be missing in a bad quality job and see if it
helps describes a good job, so now we are equating quality with
goodness, another deep philosophical issue I have no intention of
getting into.
WHAT MIGHT
BE MISSING IN A POOR QUALITY JOB THEN
1. Personal
care, if you not working with someone who carefully listens to you
and is strong enough to give you years of experience weather you like
it or not, and fallows through you project from begging to end
without handing it off to others you probably are not going to get
quality.
2. A old friend
of mine used to tell me the difference between a amateur and a
professional is the amount of time one spends on each part of a job .
So True. Spending time visiting with a prospective customer in his
house with some color samples probably isn’t going to add much in
the way to quality A salesman in you kitchen will likely tell you
anything you want to hear. Your spending time in a marble shop , with
a stone fabricator showing you the material and tools and all the
possibilities and limitations of the stone, and steps to get the
details you want is time well spent. Its all about preparation, and
announcing expectations up front including price agreement.
A quality shop allows the customer to be part of his kitchen layout. |
3. Scheduling
and coordination with customer and contractor. There is a sequence to
putting a kitchen together and a shop fabrication format, that must
interface , if they doesn’t, there is a good chance of customer
dissatisfaction .
4. Field
templates Full size templates must be made on the job site, this is a
best time to work out structural details. stone shapes , jointing
patterns, overhangs, sink and appliance details etc. This information
is then passed on with professional shop drawings to the CNS operator
and Diamond saw operator to began fabrication , Precise information
is fundamental, the old days of Dagoing it in, are for amateurs ,
field cutting and grinding almost always provides poor quality.
Professionals spend a great deal of time getting the information
correct up front , not making corrections on the job.
Full size templates waiting for fabrication |
5. Shop
Technology , The sculptor Nagoshi stated with unusual artistic
honesty, I am only better then artists before me because I have
better tools. I remember the way Art had to slide the slab to the saw
blade track, to make a cut, or the hacker with a skill saw cutting
out a slab, I guarantee the slab will be cut the easiest way rather
then the rite way.
BRIDGE SAW
Having a
bridge saw that allows the sawyer to study the stone patterns , even
with the customer if they like , and he can easily choose the best
blending of stone. This also provides the stone sawyer a sense of
pride in his work.
Bridge saw capable of doing 3-axis work |
CNC COMPUTOR
NUMERICAL CONTROL
Stone
fabrication today is so much superior to anything done before this
machine that
there is no comparison . This machine that has taken all the
brutality out of fabrication , is essentially a 3D automated router,
that cuts and forms edges, plus it mills stone exposed edges to
precise thickness , unheard of in my working days. Counters not
finished to this way shows . The old days of reaching over stones to
grind holes was a back breaking and crude system , hard on people and
produced not such good work . I remember grinding front edges on job
sites years ago to try to even them up, those days are best
forgotten. Today its all done under water and professionally formed .
Complex shapes come out of this machine as easily as straight runs
all holes are perfectly machined Need unusually shaped and detailed
stones, no problem, the craftsmen and computer technology exists in a
modern fully tooled shop.
Finished counter with all exposed edges planed flat to the same thickness |
SURFACE
POLISHER
This is the
first major tool I perched 35 years ago when we set up our
fabrication shop. Along with modern diamond technology, this machine
allows a fabrication shop to provide any finish the customer chooses
as well as a way to resurface stones with a unacceptable finish. Not
having this ability suggests to me a major void in the finished
project.
Surface polisher using diamond technology |
How could
anyone say he has quality if the job was fabricated in dirty,
unhealthy conditions Healthy present working conditions attract the
best craftsman. To have a job done by someone who cuts corners in
peoples health and working conditions, is not quality. Its
unconscionable in modern stone work. I would be willing to bet that
less then10% of the 200 advertisers discussed here are ever looked at
by OSHA. The reason they can offer cut rate prices is because the not
only do cut rate work but fly under all health and safety and
insurance regulations . Brick and Mortar parts of the business
community are the easy to visit locations that inspectors spend there
time at. The cut rate fly by night dust covered operators that people
seem to believe are craftsmen are part of the general myth bargain
hunters find to do there job. The race to the bottom my produce jobs,
but it does not produce quality. In a survey taken by STONE WORLD
magazine January 2014 , asking stone fabricators there biggest
challenge 61% stated these low end fabricators, 25% stated lower
margins, 8% competition from other materials, and only 5% from
changes in the housing industry.
A marble shop should not break employees' backs |
Clean, environmentally sound working conditions |
I doubt that
many people know the difference between a cut-rate counter job and a
quality one. Thankfully, there are enough discriminating people still
around to keep some quality marble fabrication shops and all the
people they employ still active in the industry.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
The Alaska Marble Story
Alaska marble sculpture |
The
only indigenous Pacific northwest marble that was used nationally,
was quarried on a remote island in Southeast Alaska pan handle, near
Ketchikan. Most people would think of Marble Island as part of the
Pacific Northwest inland passage rain forest, and it is that.
Geologists call these islands and land forms ''docked geology'', that
is, these land masses were pushed in here from a long distances
giving a lot mixing and stirring of materials. I personally have
looked at a variety of white, and black, red and green marbles, all
of many shades and varieties, as well as other types of stone
formations there.
Around
1900 many entrepreneurs looked to these stone deposits and started to
quarry these stones for architectural use. There is some interesting
reading on these efforts as well as geological survey records
available. Lots of money, human effort and dreams spent here by many
brave and hardy people. Even today, with all our modern devices and
transportation systems, it's a beautiful but difficult location.
Water and air transport only, and little infrastructure. Most of the
work was probably done with steam driven tools. Today electricity is
provided by oil-driven private generators on these remote islands,
transportation to camp or town, is by boat. A friend of mine says you
better be boat-wise to live here. I think it takes a lot more than
that to survive there. I would say say local knowledge is essential.
As often happens one company came out on top of the struggle and
developed quite a viable stone business in the end. That was the
Vermont Marble Company.
The
Vermont Marble Company did a lot of exploring and cleared topsoil and
quarried and core drilled many different locations along with other
stone companies looking for high quality architectural stone. Various
locations were developed and abandoned by these companies, leaving
wonderful sites for people like me to visit if you know someone with
local knowledge to guide you. I was once taken to a remote site were
I fallowed a line of green marble blocks up a rainforest hillside to
the top where a little 20 by 20 foot quarry was filled with water.
Likely none of the marble was ever sent to San Francisco to be sawed
into slabs. These men were experts in there field and didn’t waste
money if they could help it.
Eventually
the VMC focused on marble deposits on Marble Island. They built a
camp where about 60 men lived for eight months a year, with a machine
shop, and brought in the latest quarrying technology. Cook houses,
bunkhouses, a band, even a little golf course and Sunday services.
Five white marble quarries and one black marble quarry were opened.
About fifteen hundred perfect quarry blocks were shipped to San
Francisco or Tacoma Washington to be sawed and polished for
architectural building projects on good years. This went on for about
twenty five years. It was a huge industry when you consider the
average block probably yielded six hundred square feet of stone.
The
VMC was total vertical integration back then. They quarried it, they
sawed and cut it to size and they installed it. I believe one of
there last projects was the state capitol of Alaska. The Washington
state capitol used a lot of this stone as well. Building all over the
US used this stone, including much use in San Francisco. Left behind
on this remote island are thousands of quarry blocks deemed unfit to
ship for processing. A pile, miles long snaking through the rain
forest, thirty feet wide and thirty feet high covered with moss. A
sight to behold for someone like me.
If
you are interested in this sort of thing you can read three essays
titled “There's Marble in Them There Islands” here in my blog.
Alaska marble block in Portland
One of many colored stones from Alaska; this one is green stone. |
Thursday, April 11, 2013
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
Stone sculpture is a totally unique, for it is a singularly subtractive process. Even in polishing the finished piece, there is only removal of material, with no addition. SCULPTURE from the Greek word to remove.
Stone sculpture for me, is also a study in nature. The chemical and physical properties of the stone, its color, mottling, grain, and texture, all direct me to interpret the possibilities and limitations of the stone.
Each sculpture I have carved in the last twenty years has been a unique interaction between my
emotions, the stone, and the tools I am using. This challenge, and inner tension, gives the sculpture value and meaning to me, and sometimes others willing to engage with my art.
So I solicit audience participation for my sculpture, for above all, it only needs to evoke
emotion to be to be meaningful. I want my work to pass this simple test.
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