Joseph Conrad Fine Art

NEW JOSEPH CONRAD SAMPLER

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

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

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.

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

Alaska marble quarry in the rain forest


25-foot long marble columns never removed from the quarry

One of many colored stones from Alaska; this one is green stone.

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.

JOSEPH CONRAD

THE ITALIAN MYSTIQUE PROVIDES A BUMP - BUT DOES LOCAL STONE SPEAK TO YOU?

"Speak to me"

It seems to me Arts are local, and are based on local history and local knowledge, not in itself a bad thing, however, Local-ism does not serve the world of art all that well. If there is a lack of local history of stone sculpture, I believe the void is filled by romancing common knowledge about the subject. Common knowledge about stone carving is Irving Stone's version of Michelangelo. So milking Michelangelo's Renaissance stone carving, fills the gap. Savvy stone purveyors, stone workers and stone sculptors work this angle to there advantage to get what I call the Italian bump Marketing at its finest. I too love Italian culture, food, wine, fashion, autos, and art, but like my own history, culture, food, wine, fashion, autos, and art as well. I come from a rich heritage of stone workers, my father and his three brothers were all stone-carvers my three brothers, two brothers-in-law, uncle and nephews. All worked for the largest stone company in the world. None of us Italian. I feel no need to use the Italian bump to promote myself, and refuse to roll my R'S to dazzle the locals. Of course this behavior has be costly, but its a matter of self pride. There must be a better way to generate interest in local stone sculpture, after all the local wine growers found a way to self pride. Remember Duke Ellington: “If it sounds good, it is good.” I say as a stone sculpture, if looks good it is good. Good sculpture doesn’t require a signature of authenticity, or European heritage, it only needs to evoke a emotional response from the viewer to have value.

Idaho travertine

SE Alaska marble

SE Alaska marble

Montana sandstone


FOUR PHOTOS OF MY SCULPTURE

It seems Northwest wine makers found the local climate and soil for grapes equal to Italy, unfortunately our northwest basalt isn’t like European marble for carving, however we to have wonderful carving stone. Its not the stone, but what you do with the stone that makes great art. I am sure you could have the greatest soil and climate in the world but not have good wine if your not a good winemaker. Good stone sculpture is made by good artists. And we have lots of good artists in the Northwest. Personally I take great pride in reading local stone I source myself, even if it is not as romantic as tying myself to Italian Mystique. There is nothing more satisfying to me then taking a raw stone fragment, and creating a beautiful enduring piece of art. To me the expression reading the stone is often expressed as the stone speaks to me.

Early traveler

Natural cleavage

READING THE STONE

The natural shape of the found local stone defined both their destinies

Early Traveler from SE Alaska. Natural cleavage from New Mexico. 

It seems to me the local stereotype which am calling The Italian Bump in stone carving is a mixture of Michelangelo's genius and savvy Italian business men promoting white Carrara marble. The two elements become indistinguishable and interchangeable. The end result is that Italian marble then becomes the object of desire in itself and is indistinguishable from the quality of the art. So rolling your rs and playing the game becomes as important as knowing your art. All stone sculptors enjoy working on a piece of white marble but there is little reading the stone in white marble, there is nothing to read. Its a matter of removing the material to revel the form in your mind. Not a bad thing, but certainly a different exercise then reading the stone. Its a matter of geometry and knowing your tools. The quality of the sculpture is equal to the quality of the form in your mind. It seems to me that stone sculpture cut from a white Italian marble, accrues the added value of the Italian mystique. Carving Italian white marble has its challenges and creating a art form that is in your mind is not easy and I certainly enjoy that personal challenge but I think carving indigenous marbles truly requires me to read the stone. The stone defines the limits as well as the possibility of the sculpture. This is rarely understood by by non stone carvers and of course gets none of the Italian mystique benefit. In fact it often is viewed as inferior product not measuring up to the Italian myth held by locals. I have often observed that eyes light up and you get the approving look when I tell someone in a low voice, this is a piece of Italian or Greek marble, THE ITALIAN BUMP of importance. The little German village I grew up in, was and still is the home of the largest stone company in the world, also had a fine little German Pilsner brewery but we as locals, rarely drank it, its strange how often local people think something from someplace else must be better. Best to milk the Italian mystique if sales is your goal, in many parts of this country.

My David carved from local marble

An image conceived in the mind, and brought to life by removing material to fit mental image.

So even though Northwest wine makers seem to have had some success at overcoming the Italian promotion machine, I don’t think local stone, or modern day sculptors sculptors, will ever be fully accepted as equals to Italian stone or modern day Italian artists. Its to hard to overcome Italian marketing, after all, we all understand they make the best food, the best wine, the best cars, the best fashion, and due to there Mediterranean dark skin, the men seem to get better looking as the age, just the opposite as my ruddy German complexion, it seems so unfair. But I do what I can. Growing up in a Lake Wobegon environment has made me humble and accepting of my place in the wonderful world of Art.

There's Marble in Them There Islands, Part 3

There is a wealth of misinformation surrounding the marble industry. One example is illustrated here. Many people assume marble has value. Over the years I have had prospectors and land owners come to me with accounts describing the number of acres of marble they have. Always accompanied with the statement of inexhaustible supply. Or how often individuals ask me if I would store, or buy salvaged marble slabs from them.

Marble mill blocks in the rain forest

25-foot long mill blocks left over from the Juneau Capitol job

To many the idea of thousands of already-quarried marble blocks lying abandoned in the rain forest of SE Alaska seems preposterous. Yet these blocks have laid peacefully on Marble Island Alaska for over one hundred years. There must be some reason for this.

Swimming in an abandoned quarry

Through a romantic lens, marble mill blocks in your back yard would seem to harbor value, however, as a grizzled stone industry entrepreneur, I realize stone in itself has little value. It only acquires value when you invest your time and money in it. This is typically not understood by prospectors and site owners since from their perspective the stone on their land has value and they expect monetary rewards leaving the risk and investment to someone else. I have always found this to be the case. Marble fever like Gold fever. Easy to understand. In this case the marble blocks have to be transported to a location with infrastructure to saw the blocks into slabs. No such place exists in Alaska. Finished slabs may have value. Risky business, in the stone industry you are competing against the world in sawing technology costs. USA, India, China, Brazil, Italy, Spain, all tough customers to compete with locally.

The dreamer looks at this situation and thinks it must be possible to set up a diamond wire saw and saw one slab at a time, a technology he has seen in stone journals or television specials. (This single wire technology may work in some situations but will not work well in the competitive slab market.) This stone is so unique, has such historic value that surely people will pay what it costs to produce locally. After all we live in an age of local is better. Such naivete. (See my essay Local Knowledge). For the business reality is, white marble competes with other white marble for the white marble market. Few people are discriminating enough to see the difference between them when they are spending their money. Many a local architect or potential commercial or residential customer inquires about using a local material only to say upon receiving your proposal, what do you mean local material costs more then Carrara shipped all the way from Italy.

Everyone who travels to the Apuane Alps looks at the great marble mountains with wonder and romance, only the Italians can generate, as they do with so many products, but it's a rare tourist who stops by the stone factories below, churning out slabs of marble and granite from mill blocks shipped in from throughout the world to be gang sawed with great efficiency then shipped by container back to the world at ocean fright rates. ITS ALL ABOUT GANGSAWING EFFICENCY, ALWAYS HAS BEEN SINCE 1950.

Vermont Marble Company did just that around the turn of the century, setting up gang saws in Tacoma and San Francisco and supplied thousands of square feet of white marble for commercial building throughout the west until the bottom dropped out of construction around 1929. The Italians developed faster and cheaper sawing systems than was done in the USA. This along with international port to port freight rates gave Carrara a competitive edge.

It's a rare and special American who is willing to pay the cost of local material for his or her home or commercial project. Italian romance is hard to overcome since it is also the cheapest. It seems to me that the primary reason all these saw blocks languish in the rain forest is because of international competition for white marble provided by massive sawing economies of scale and international ocean fright rates.

So why doesn’t some wealthy investor see this opportunity and set up a modern gang saw operation in Seattle or San Francisco and barge these saw blocks there and provide local material at a slightly higher cost then Carrara? It would be to risky -- one color is not enough to sustain a sawmill. The volume of sales would never pay the costs. One only has to spend a little time on the internet to see what a silly idea it would be today. Marble brokers have the world at there fingertips with much less risk.

I think environmentalists (I studied physical geography, biology, and urban studies in college in the 1970s planing to be an environmental planner ) who speak of local products being more environmentally friendly do not take into consideration modern container shipping.

I always smile to myself when someone tells me they used concrete, poured on top their kitchen counters rather then foreign granite. There jaw usually drops when I ask them if they think blasting limestone from eastern Oregon, crushing it, then cooking it up to 2500 degrees releasing noxious gases, then trucking it to Portland, then dredging the Willamette river for sand, mixing it up and pouring it on to your ever expanding and contracting wooden counters then sealing it with some chemical so the man made limestone won't immediately react with your food, is more environmentally friendly then drilling and splitting a stone mill block from the ground sawing and grinding it with diamond blades (no chemicals only abrasion) then port to port container shipping is more environmentally friendly? REALLY. Some trendy ideas just fool the general public and they get stuck with a vastly inferior counter at the same cost as natural stone and you had a guy who knew how to use a trowel rather then a master craftsmen do your job, such a deal.

Some photos of local fabrication and finished stone counter at Conrad Stonecutter in Portland, Oregon 

Local use of local stone, in this instance, as much as I would like to see it happen, will likely never occur. But we can take the raw product, stone slabs, from throughout the world and add value locally, a remarkably unique business in today’s US economic situation Just what this country needs.

I knew all this as I tramped about the Alaskan rain forest looking at indigenous marble resources

WHAT THEN TO DO WITH THIS BEATUFUL ALASKAN MARBLE

Chapter 4.

Alaskan mill blocks in Portland

How Are You Inspired?

I once asked a friend, what do you think was on the mind of the woodcarver when he was carving a wall sculpture he had purchased. I think I may have insulted him, for he ignored the question. Of course art doesn’t need explanation, it only has to evoke some emotion to give it meaning. However it seems to me it would be nice to think the artist was thinking of something when he created the art. Maybe I am being cynical to ask for this in art, I don't know.

I often talk of the barriers to stone carving, but I also think stone carvers are lucky in that they have so many ways their medium can inspire them. Stone speaks, so to say. I can't imagine a chunk of clay or a blank canvas inspiring me the way stone does. The stone provides both the limitations and the possibilities for me. This makes it a special art form. Every piece of stone has its own specific characteristics, one may try, but its unlikely that a favorable result will happen if the artist misreads the stone. To be STONEWISE is a real asset. Not to be, shows. The nicest compliment I ever received came at a stone sculpture event when a man told me, “Joe, you read the stone like no one else. ” Never forgot that. Experience helps in stone carving.

MENTAL IMAGING

THE DAVID

Irving Stone popularized the idea that Michelangelo could see a form within the stone. Of course, what does that say? Does an artist paint outside the canvas? My guess is that Michelangelo had a romantic vision that he felt had popular support, and found the largest block of stone he could get, to carve it out. It was all in his head. Mental imaging, genius indeed. From that point on it was all technical skill and endurance. I suspect he established benchmarks in the block so as to keep the proportions he wanted. Its hard for me to imagine the skills he must have had, as well as his artistic vocabulary. This is an extreme example of the most common approach to stone subtraction to get the desired three-dimensional form . imaged. It seems to me this what most all artists must do to create there art. I have never been good at this. But there are many other ways in stone carving for people like me.

COLOR INSPIRATION

I think this is a real plus, for the stone carver, who may be mental imagine impaired. What is one to do with a light pink marble? Carve a animal, or an abstract? Not likely, more likely the human form, most often feminine. For most stone carvers, basalt almost demands a Noguchi like form. Noguchi spent time in Japan's basalt islands working basalt so it was a natural for him. Cut a side away, leave a crusty side and polish another and you're done. Stone speaks. Pure white, to me, almost demands a youthful form. That’s why I did my David in the whitest marble I will ever get, which came from Mt Calder, Alaska. (See my blog “The Making of My David”) The translucence of alabaster and onyx seem to demand natural forms, flowers and foliage etc. Color can be masculine or feminine. Does a gray sandstone want to make you carve a flower? I think color is a great source of inspiration that is unique to stone carving.

VEINING

I have no heavily veined marbles. If I did, it would likely be used for either an animal form or an abstract, where the beauty of the stone stands alone. The artist only has to bring out the stone's character Many a stone carver has found that heavy veining does not work on a head but great for a free form. Heavy veining in a stone makes it sing.

THE SHAPE OF THE STONE

The most uninspiring shape I can imagine is cubical. It demands pure artistic mental imagining No doubt about it. See the shape in your head and subtract material to free the form imagined. I find this hard to do. On the other hand a difficult shape like a triangle can easily lead me to the New Mexico sculpture pictured. Remember, stone carving is a tough art form and most carvers I have known remove as little stone as possible to get the form they want. The half circle shape definitely inspired me to create Men at Work.

STONE LOCATION AND FOUND ART

Early Traveler

Practicing Physics

Glacial Activity

I found “Early Traveler” on a beach in SE Alaska where scientists now say that men first came over the Bering Strait to North America. An artist friend, Cindy Dececco, thought she saw a human form there. It immediately jumped right out at me and “Early Traveler” was born. Even the red color worked this time. So “Early Traveler” had shape, location and color to inspire me . What an easy job for me. “Practicing Physics” was pure found art I found these two pieces of quartz on Wadleigh Island Alaska and attached them to a green argillite less then 10 miles away on Prince of Wales, Alaska. “Glacial Activity” came from a road trip and hiking in Montana’s Glacier National Park. The green and red stone forming G. N. P. Are very inspiring to all basalt basin residents like me.

NATURAL WEATHERING OF STONE

Natural Cleavage

Romance

Gibson

The manner in which natural processes weather stone is a great form of inspiration to me. I have no photos, but I know the skin on basalt is a big part of basalt carving. My favorite stone by far is marble, preferably a northwest marble weathered by wind and rain. Chinese culture has long been enchanted with nature's weathering process on marble, They have elevated it to monumental proportions in what they call scholar stones. The Chinese call this Wuxi and the Japanese use the word Suiseki. The beaches of SE Alaska are weathered by tide coming and going. The photo I took in the Prior Mountains in Montana showing weathering from rain. I used to have a geography professor who would say we came just in time, one million years earlier or later it wouldn’t be the same as we arrived at our field studies. For me weathered local marble is a great source of inspiration.

TRIBUTARY ART

The Leg Lamp

High Style

My Idaho travertine leg lamp is a salute to Jean Shepard, the author. Some day I hope to put Garrison Keillor’s fishing dog on one side; and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, with a fishing pole, on the other side. Sadly no space left for Will Rogers in my ranking system. All four of these great American observers of the human condition deserve a stone carver salute. “High Style”, a tip of the hat to the human fixation on appearance and the fashion industry. There is nothing like an elegant woman to get my attention. Wonderful inspiration.

THEMATIC SCULPTURE

Apples and Pears

Apples and Pears

Apples and Pears

I have always felt that comparing apples and oranges just doesn’t work well. It's a lot more fun to compare male and female with apples and pears. This idea can turn many ways from abstract to rigidly formal. I like it, and hope to develop this concept many ways in the future. The great book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance struggles with creativity, so I certainly would not presume to know where creativity like apples and pears come from, it's way beyond me, it just is.

CLASSICAL ART

Human forms

Carving the human form never gets old. It's a great challenge to get the proportions the way you want, never easy. I am prejudiced but I feel that a lot of abstract stone carving I see is merely tool manipulation. As an old stone fabricator in the industry for so many years I just smile to myself and say looks like he got a new core drill or chain saw etc. Classical form demand classical ability, not tool tricks. Even though I do a lot of tool tricks myself . See my stone bowls below, a subject of future essay. In the end I hope anyone who looks at my sculpture will know what was on my mind when I carved it.

Tool tricks

ARE YOU INSPIRED, HAVE YOU BEEN INSPIRED?