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"?

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.

Four anecdotal stories about the stone industry:

1 BITS OF ADVICE GIVEN MEBE STONE PEOPLE

2 HOWARD THE ONE HUNDREDPOUND MUSCLE MAN, stone handling at its finest

3 MY FRIEND PETE, the old Italian stone master

4 MY DAD THE STONECUTTER

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