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I Wish I Had Done That

George Pratt Pats Michael Binkley On The Back . . .

There have been many sculptures produced by my friends/colleagues in NWSSA whence I could happily apply the title line, but my current envy trip is this remarkable piece of Michael’s. He aptly has entitled it ‘Making Space’. I’ve visited it twice now in his studio and both times came away obsessed with its excellence. It truly captivates me. Here’s why:
Making Space, by Michael Binkley  Making Space by Michael Binkley
- He did not choose a tried and true, tailored stone for the work i.e., like a piece of dimension marble. Encountering a broken black funerary monument, he exploited what otherwise would have been destined for the scrap heap; a textbook study around the word ‘inspiration’.

- The perfectly paired and polished surfaces, the absolute invisibility of the mounting, the general execution of the whole work, merit profound admiration to be sure. But what really grabs me here is the totality of sculptural experience required to get this work ‘right’. I’m thinking Michael probably started out just cleaning up the two broken halves with no greater purpose for them in mind. The first thing he did was achieve perfection in the polish (hey, it’s black granite! Try it!) which could only have been done by summoning up the skill of long experience.

Along the way, he had to be puzzling out some way to present the two halves being held apart; it would make a very weak story to simply clap them together again after polishing. Various methods come to mind - pinning in some way being foremost, or possibly using adhesives. The notion of presenting them as boulders with a human character holding them apart was a eureka moment in creativity. I don’t know that I’d have ever thought of it.

But how to make such a human character? It could perhaps be done in some kind of stone, maybe marble — but what Michael did do was illustrative of a restless creativity that had him eternally reaching out to expand his ability in sculptural arts. A curious mind had him playing with computer software that allowed him to execute 3-D imaging; in an apocalyptic moment he conceived of, and created, a human figure to do the pushing. It is metal sculpture, not stone sculpture, but it is no less of an adulteration than metal pins doing the job.

Michael finessed it all by correctly calculating the size the human must be relative to the stone ‘boulders’ so that certain feelings are evoked. To me, the boulders represent a looming, insistent power, trying ever to close — but here is a valiant savior struggling against overwhelming odds to fend off certain disaster. My mind runs to the little Dutch boy holding his finger in the dyke.

For me, the sculpture evokes TENSION. I feel it. All the time I’m looking at the sculpture I can’t stop feeling it.

Would I have done anything differently? Well, I write about this fine piece of Michael’s because I doubt I would ever have conceived of it at all. The important thing I have to say is ‘Good on you, Michael! Wish I had done it . . . !’

Art In Response to Covid-19

“Warning”"Warning" by Leon White

Mixed Media 12”H x 6”Diameter.

By Leon White

This sculpture came about from a collector through Karla Matzke Gallery, who requested that some of Karla’s collection of artists create their representation of the Covid-19 virus. For

me, it was utilizing the form of one of my small bird sculptures. Her suggestion was, a crow

wearing a face mask? As we are in the midst of, and feeling the pains of this global pandemic,

my first thought was “YUCK, what a horrible idea!”. Inquiring why she would want such a thing, she shared that knowing this too will be a historical event she wanted this reflected in the artwork in her collection.

Giving this some more thought, I remembered that artists have captured major natural or manmade world events throughout history.  Over the next week I wondered, “How can I depict this without being vulgar and negative?”

Leon White, canary detail, "Warning"I chose to use a yellow canary wearing a facemask to warn that the virus is blooming, just as when caged canaries were used as alarms in the old mining days to indicate poisonous gases (the workers could try to escape if the canary dropped dead). My little birds are usually looking at something on another branch, such as a bug or flower. Since the Coronavirus looks like some kind of a seed pod in bright colors, I chose to use its shape as flowers in various stages of blooming. Scrounging around in my junk drawers (don’t all artists have them?) I tried to figure out what I could use to make this. Finding the right materials was not a simple feat. Then, I felt the blossoms alone were not interesting enough. The sculpture needed some leaf forms to make it a plant, but an imaginary sci-fi virus plant would not have green leaves. AH HA! Thinking about the South American poisonous dart frogs with their bright colored bodies to warn predators NOT TO EAT THEM, I painted these leaves in shades of blues along with the bright blossoms as a metaphor for the same. DO NOT SNIFF THESE!

In Review: The Museum and the Henge

Maryhill Museum HengeBy Benjamin Mefford
Creature CarvingMaryhill Museum has been on my list of places to visit for a decade, and I finally made a point to spend a day exploring. The 5,300 acre property is located two hours drive east of Portland, Oregon on the Washington side of the river. This quiet landscape with sweeping views of the Columbia River Gorge is well worth a visit, particularly for sculptors. Founded by Sam Hill in the 1920’s, the museum has a fascinating history. The museum itself is a large building, with some modern updates and a diverse collection. Inside you can find a permanent collection of more than 50 works by Auguste Rodin, primarily plaster studies. While these are perhaps less impressive as art objects compared to his larger finished works, I found them both more accessible and more informative of his process. Also of particular interest is the collection of Native American artworks that includes stone sculpture. Altogether, the Indigenous Peoples of North America Collection has more than 3,500 objects. While there are just several moderate sized works that would clearly be considered “sculpture”, this is more than I have ever seen of such stone artifacts from our region. For me, seeing these hand pecked carvings in basalt alone was worth the trip.

Maryhill Museum - "Moon Temple" 2006 Leon WhiteSpread out around the exterior of the museum, one can discover the outdoor art collection. A large concrete sculpture installation is sited within an overlook garden, and was created by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Form Works of Portland, Oregon; this was an early project for Cloepfil and AFW, who have gone on to structural design projects for Wieden + Kennedy, Caldera Arts Center, and the Seattle Art Museum, to name just a few. Just southeast of the main building, Brushing (2009), by Mike Suri, playfully illustrates the effect of powerful winds that move through the Columbia River Gorge. Mike is not only a talented metal sculptor, but he has also helped many NWSSA members install their works in the outdoor exhibit Gallery Without Walls in Lake Oswego, Oregon. Just a short distance to the northwest of the main building, a tranquil green space includes about half of the outdoor artworks. There, I found the granite and steel sculpture Moon Temple (2006) - created by none other than long-time NWSSA member Leon WhiteHenge 2

Now let us travel east a few miles down the road. Have we left that original property of Sam Hill yet? Nope. Down a short ways from the highway and approaching the Columbia River once again, we find an immense memorial: a full scale replica of the ancient megalith Stonehenge. With only some minor variations, the Maryhill Henge is intended to precisely capture what Hill determined was the original design of ancient Stonehenge, at the time that it was built. This might be the earliest example of its kind of modern public art in the region. The structure was dedicated to the memory of soldiers killed during WWI. While the Maryhill Henge is made of reinforced concrete rather than massive stones - and I imagine does not have quite the same supernatural presence of the original - it has some distinct advantages that you won’t get by trekking to England. Most importantly, you can walk all around it, within it, and touch the columns. It is free and open to the public every day of the year. There were some other visitors, but for a little while I had the whole place to myself. Standing within the massive structure really helps one to take in the scale of the original. We sculptors know better than most that pictures just do not do justice to the experience of interacting with three dimensions. By itself, stepping out from between the columns for a look at the Columbia River Gorge is spectacular. Basalt cliffs under open skies… what else could a stone sculptor ask for in a view?
Brushing 2009 Mike Suri  

Maryhill Museum 
Henge 4Henge 3

Painting on Stone Sculptures

by Jonna Ramey

A surprising tool in the sculptor’s kit is paint. Never having tried this before, I reached out to NWSSA members for information. Oregon-based sculptor MJ Anderson came through with details and inspiration. This article is based on our conversations and my experiments.

Colors.
MJ has been known to incorporate metallic paint colors such as gold, silver, and copper (as well as flat black, gray, white, bright blue, and red!), usually to unify a textured area, transform a problem spot in the material, or sometimes to add as a needed, integral part of the sculpture. She also applies metallic leaf to her work, which is another, longer story. Metallic paint formulas impart a delicious luminance to stone. I tested metallic gold, silver, copper, graphite gray, gold flake, black, and brown.
My first piece to paint was a busy relief sculpture of a gingko bough that I carved in honeycomb calcite. Once polished, the leaves and stems were virtually invisible against the background. I used brown paint to deepen the shadows, making the high-gloss leaves and branches pop.

Materials and environment.
MJ recommended working with oil-based enamel paints like Testor brand metallic paints on stone. She has also used oil-based varnish sprays. The effects can be subtle, beautiful, and rich. She uses both bottled and spray paints but prefers sprays. I found I liked bottled paint on this one piece but can see the advantage of sprays for unique colors and effects. You’ll need lots of rags (cut up t-shirts or sheets work well), clean paint thinner, Q-tips, nitrile gloves, and mixing sticks. You need a clean space to work in (no dust). Air temperature of 50-75 degrees is good. Too hot and the paint will dry on your rag before you can get it onto the stone. Good ventilation is important: you don’t want to kill brain cells or ignite fumes into flames.

Process.
These steps assume that you have sanded, buffed, and finished your piece to your satisfaction before beginning applying paint.

Step one. Cover the piece/area with the stone impregnator sealer that you normally use (511 Impregnator, for example). You do this first so that the petroleum-based impregnator will not interfere with the oil-based paint later. Apply it according to product directions and/or your preference. Once applied, dried and cured, you can proceed to step two.

Step two. The basic technique involves two rags—one with paint on it and one with thinner. You swipe on the paint with one rag and then swipe off with the thinner rag. You keep up this swipe on/swipe off process until you achieve the color density or effect you desire. Having some thinner on your paint rag before you dab it into the paint is good to help keep the paint more transparent. Being relaxed as you work, trusting your instincts and taste, you’ll add the subtle warming, shadowing or luster you need in the piece.

Tips and Test.
When using spray oil-based enamels or varnishes, MJ recommends spraying the paint into the cap of the can. Wipe the paint out with your paint rag and then swipe it onto the sculpture. She likes using paint thinner to thin the paint and make it more transparent. It may take you longer to build up the color or effect you want but the control you have with a more transparent paint is essential.
Test 1
Colors on this side of the test stone (L to R) are liquid metallic black, gold, silver, gold flake, and copper.
Test 2
Colors on this side of the test stone (L to R) are liquid brown, metallic sprays of graphite, silver, gold, and brown.

I found that first creating a test stone with a variety of colors was very helpful. I took a shard of faded honeycomb calcite, carved some quick grooves into it with my angle grinder, and sanded the surface to about 400 grit. I then used 511 impregnator sealer on the stone. I taped off little test areas on the front, back and sides of the stone. Then I applied a variety of colors and paint types (liquid and spray). I painted one square the ‘solid’ color and the square next to it the ‘swipe on/swipe off’ version with 3-5 swipes. I made notes so that I can later remember what section included what color or treatment. Taking off the tape once dry, I could directly compare the untreated stone with the various colors and swipe levels. I immediately realized that some of the colors could enhance other existing sculptures in unique ways, beyond the specific piece I am working on now. I keep the test stone and notes with the box of paints and thinner for future reference. Sculptors, have fun experimenting.

Gingko Before  Ramey Gingko Bough1 after
Before & After
“Gingko Bough” by Jonna Ramey. An example of paint on honeycomb calcite.

When The World Dissolves,  MJ Anderson“When the World Dissolves” by MJ Anderson. An example of using paint on an alabaster sculpture.


Jonna Ramey is a sculptor based in Salt Lake City, Utah.
MJ Anderson sculpts in Nehalem, Oregon and Carrara, Italy.

Sculptfest 2019

"Pause", The Bear in place for 2019-2020 by Carl NelsonFor 27 years the City of Round Rock, Texas, has held the three day SculptFest event.  Along with 60 other artists, I was invited to display my sculpture at SculptFest 2019, and to leave my large bear sculpture “Pause” on display for one year.  Special thanks to Candyce Garrett for making it happen for me.

SculptFest 2019 Stone CarversBeing at SculptFest was a great way to meet other sculptors and see a lot of sculpture.  There were large and small bronzes, cloth and fiber constructions, wood, and of course stone.  I have to admit, I was so involved with the initial setup, talking to the public, and getting to know the other artists that I did not take many pictures of the sculpture.  SculptFest the previous year had 24 of Alan Houser’s large bronze pieces, which made for a surreal occurrence of his work being moved out while Candyce and Jason moved in their stone work.

Photo: I felt very honored to be a part of the group of stone carvers Candyce asked to participate in the event (left to right) Myself,  Larry Yazzie, Jason Quigno, Tony Lee, Candyce Jones Garrett, Cliff Fragua, Ray Scott, Adrian Wall and Jon DeCelles.]

I also traded off between my Sculptor hat and my NWSSA hat while a part of SculptFest, including in conversations with Joe Kenny, president of the Texas Society of Sculptors.  We talked about NWSSA’s support of a new veterans sculpting program, and Joe put us in touch with Continental Cut Stone who donated 3000 lbs of limestone from their bone yard for use in support of our efforts.  Jason Quigno accompanied me to select and pickup stone from Continental.   

Our visit to the Continental Cut Stone boneyard and this is a small fraction.  Jason Quigno immediately had to figure out how to take this quarry block home, or at least have his photo taken with it 

Given that I drove the boom truck from Washington to Texas, I also had the opportunity to visit other stone yards and quarries on the way home.  Marble Falls, Texas is home to Coldspring Granite and Sandra D. Connors, who has much wisdom in selling stone to sculptors, is the holder of the keys to the Coldspring Granite Texas candy store.  She gave Jason Quigno, Larry Yazzie, and me a tour of their stone yard and arranged for their quarry manager, Terry, to take us into the quarry to explain how they do it. The yard and quarry are an impressive place to shop. If you ever need reds or dark grey-black granite, contact Sandra.  And by the way, Marble Falls is misnamed, there is no marble there. 

Calcite: Wonderful dendritic patternsThe final leg of the return trip took me about 100 miles east of Salt Lake City to Rick and Jean’s honeycomb calcite yard, the Shamrock Mining Association in Hanna Utah.  Honeycomb Calcite is what happens when a limestone cave is pushed down into the earth and the calcium from the limestone is leached, fills the cave, is baked for millions of years, pushed back up, and then some folks quarry and bring it down the mountain for us to carve.  I'd characterize the workability of this stone as a medium to soft marble.  The weakest places can be, but not always, the large white seams between the solid yellow and orange areas.  Dark red lines in some of the stones are very solid fractures that have healed. Rick calls them dinosaur blood seams.

Given that I came early in their season, snow was late to leave this year and Rick was generous with his time. He showed me their shop with wire saw, projects in process, some of their processing techniques, and a machine he built for coring from a 4” pipe threader.  Once out in their yard he was helpful in pointing out the color patterns and solid stones for carving. Later, before I left with over 3000# of stone, Jean showed me some of the jewelry she makes from the calcite.  There is a lot of stone available, and equipment to help load it.

I’ll return next year to pickup the bear and am thinking of organizing a one time stone buy for NWSSA members. Stay tuned.

Ways of Knowing

Bob Leverich’s Commission by the Washington State Arts Commission
to create a sculpture on the grounds of Vashon Island High School.
Ravensdale Quarry Boulder SplitVery early on a Saturday back in June, 2017, we loaded my pick-up with a generator and lots of supplies and headed to the Ravensdale gravel quarry to make this successful boulder split.

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We Don't Make Mistakes

Happy Accidents - Bob Ross“We don’t make mistakes, we just make happy accidents.” - Bob Ross


Every writer at some point will experience writer's block. Carvers too can have the experience of feeling as though they have come to a creative dead end. Sometimes facing a new stone is all it takes.

Unless we have A Plan. Often we carve from a maquette. Following the original design precisely. Sometimes we begin with a drawing on paper and transfer it exactly to a grid on a block of dimensional stone.

Or, sometimes, we just direct carve.

We may begin with an idea, or we may just let our mind float. Go on automatic and get lost in the shapes and texture and color of the stone.

Or we might come up with nothing. That’s the time to invite your muse in and listen to what she has to say. Maybe something like this:

Anything you want to do you can do here. Maybe there’s a figure ready to leap from the stone. Maybe there’s an abstract inside. Often it just happens - whether or not you worried about it or tried to plan it.

Isn’t it great to do something you can’t fail at? We spend so much of our life looking - but never seeing. Now’s the chance to see our inner vision and translate it to stone.

Talent is a pursued interest. That is to say, anything you practice you can do. And the more you practice, the better you get.

No pressure. Just relax and watch it happen. The least little curve can do so much.

Don’t hurry. Take your time and enjoy. Let all these things just sort of happen. Chip a little away from here, make a swoop there, create a space.

Grind off a third of the stone. Smooth out bumps. Create bumps.

All you have to do is let your imagination off the leash. There’s really no end to this. Have a little bit of fun.

Come on. Pick up a tool. Let’s get started.

The editors thank Bob Ross for the inspiration for the above suggestions.

4 Culture

4Culture is an organization that provides cultural funding and support in King County, WA. In recent years they have awarded NWSSA two Equipment Grants (which included upgrading our computer equipment), and we were awarded a Sustained Support grant for 2017 and 2018 for $2200 per year.

Grants can be a really wonderful resource for artists, particularly for our members since the startup costs for a stone sculpture studio are greater than for most mediums.As a student, I benefitted indirectly from at least 3 grants when other artists hired me to assist with their grant-funded projects, and as an artist, I have received two invaluable grants to support my own work. It takes time and effort and the risk of rejection, but regardless of the results, the process can help you clarify your goals and learn how to better communicate your ideas.
4culture.org Logo

4Culture.org is a great resource for NWSSA both as an organization and for individuals based in King County, WA. One of my last acts in my thirty-three years as a King County resident was to create my sculpture “KnowTime,” previously highlighted in the July/August 2017 edition of Sculpture NorthWest. I had plenty of help getting that sculpture made, and a primary resource was a $1500 grant I received under the program, “Open 4Culture.” This grant is specifically designed to help those new to the grant process, and it has a rolling deadline so one can apply any time. If you are aKing County resident, I highly encourage you to take advantage of this program - they will help walk you through it if you have questions- they want you to succeed! Once you have successfully navigated this entry level grant program, it gives you an edge in applying to Project Grants. Both programs help you take on the upfront expenses of larger projects so that you can expand into new areas. For me, I wanted to have at least one large-scale portfolio piece for applying to public art projects. For you, it could be any number of possibilities.

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The Egyptian

by Frank Rose
The Egyptian by Frank RoseFrom early grade school, I was interested in art. Although I spent a good part of my early life on the high seas with the US Navy, I always took the opportunity to view art in Asian and European cities and while on shore duty stations, I attended life drawing and painting classes offered at local colleges. My most enjoyable learning experience in life drawing and oil painting took place at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Virginia. Many of the art teachers working there were highly successful artists.About eight or ten years ago I rented a small space at the Freeland Art Studios on Whidbey Island, primarily to create water-based clay portraiture. 
I began with a water based Clay MaquetteThe clay portraiture process taught me how hard it is to get a likeness and to keep it once found. It also helped me to better understand the construction of the cranium, allowing me to create a very credible portrait of someone that I have never met. 
Working in stone was not completely my idea. As it turned out, about a year and half ago, I was challenged by studio associates Sue Taves, Lloyd Whannell, Woody Morris, Lane Tompkins and Penelope Crittenden to create a life-size portrait, using only hand tools, in one-sixth of a limestone column measuring 13x13 inches x 5 1/2 feet high. It was Texas limestone, soft white, clean and beautiful throughout, a gift to the Freeland Art Studios by the very generous Scott Hackney of the Marenakos Rock Center.

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From Bernini to Brancusi

The dramatic change in Portrait sculpture from Rococo to Minimalist.
By Lane Tompkins
Bust of Duke Freancis I D Este, Bernini 1651The Rococo period in marble portrait sculpture can hardly be better illustrated than by the Italian Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s portrait bust of Francis I D’Este, Duke of Modena, which was completed at the midpoint of the 17th century. This super realistic piece surrounds a face, that looks to be alive, by fantastically long cascades of curled hair, dream-like billowings of fabric in a swirl around his armored torso, with soft touches of crocheted lace at his neck.

Get as close as his minders at the Este Gallery Museum in Modena will allow you or zoom in on any of the large format photos available of him, and you will find it hard to believe that the Duke is stone and not living flesh. 

Moving through many art filled decades, we come to a time early in the 20th century when Constantine Brancusi, a Romanian working in France, began his life’s work on a simpler style, something often referred to as minimalist art. One can hardly find two sculptures more different than Bernini’s Duke of Modena and Brancusi’s Sleeping-Muse. Both are in Carrara marble and both are human heads, but the differences between the two are nothing if not stunning. 

Sleeping Muse, Brancusi 1909Gone are all the marvelous coverings of cloth and metal. Even the hair is reduced to a mere indication of a few strands on the top of the head. Brancusi’s head isn’t even placed upright on a pedestal, but simply lies like and egg on a table. 

It’s a good thing we don’t have to choose between these two schools of art for our enjoyment. We can simply absorb all that we want from each of these vastly different approaches, choosing one (or even both) to be the inspiration for our own next work of art. 

Enjoy your work fellow carvers; finding satisfaction in your own personal style. Bon Appetite for stone!

Barbara Hepworth 1903 - 1975

Without a doubt, the foremost woman sculptor of the 20th century, Barbara Hepworth is responsible in part for the emergence and acceptance of Abstract Art.Barbara in her studio circa 1950’s, with white marble sculpture and black cat.

Even before I started working in stone I was interested in sculpture and was inspired by a book I found in 1988 at our local Library used book sale, titled “Barbara Hepworth, a Pictorial Autobiography,” published by the TATE Gallery, 1970.

The very next summer on a boat trip to Canada I meet a stone sculptor on  Salt Spring Island. He was kind enough to give me my first two pieces of stone to carve, which resulted in thirty plus years of discovery and joy as an artist.
View of her Trewyn Studio (just as she left it.) Barbara died here of smoke inhalation from an accidental fire on 20 May, 1975 at the age of 72. (Photo by Arliss Newcomb.)
Six years ago on a trip to the UK with my husband Mike, we traveled to see her Museum and studio in St. Ives, near Lands End in Cornwall. It was a most moving and profound experience for me walking in her sculpture garden and seeing her working studio with all her tools just as she left them to stop for a tea break. While she dozed off for a short nap, the hotplate warming the tea water started a smoky fire which resulted in her death from smoke inhalation, May 20, 1975. She was seventy-two years old. A very great loss to the art world.

Born in 1903 in Wakefield, UK, she was a budding artist at a very young age.
At 17 seventeen she was accepted as a scholarship student at the Leeds School of Art.
Henry Moore was a fellow student. At nineteen she received a traveling scholarship
to go to Italy and study. There she meets many of the young leading names in the new movement of Abstract Art: Arp, Picasso, Brancusi and John Skeaping, whom she married at age twenty-four. Their son Paul was born two years later. Together they held several shows in both Europe and England which brought them public notice as artists of note. In 1931 she meet Ben Nicholson and in 1934 she gave birth to triplets, Simon, Rachel and Sarah. In 1938 they married. Because of the oncoming of WW2 they moved from their studios near London to the small town of St. Ives in Cornwall, where they both contributed to the war effort. Barbara’s Trewyn studio showing some of her projects under way at the time of her death in l975. (Photo by Arliss Newcomb, seen in the wall mirror.)

A sculpture she was working on at the time of her death. (Photo by Arliss Newcomb.)Hepworth was a very prolific sculptor, and produced over six hundred works of art over her lifetime, including many works of public art in England and across Europe. Most notable was "SINGLE FORM" installed in the courtyard of the United Nations in New York on June 11,1964 in honor of Dag Hammarskjold, the UN’s first president.

She is also noted for many of her sculptures being pierced (with a hole.) In 1931 she sculpted "PIERCED FORM." She said "the hole connects one side to the other, making it immediately more three-dimensional." (Henry Moore's first sculpture with a hole was carved in 1932.)

Three years ago, on a second trip to the UK, Mike’s son James organized a trip for us to go to the city of Wakefield, her place of birth just south of the Scottish border, to visit the Hepworth-Wakefield Museum. On display is a large collection of both finished work and rediscovered working models for her bronze sculptures. A short drive away is the beautiful five-hundred acre Yorkshire Sculpture Park with her multi-figure "FAMILY OF MAN," along with pieces by Henry Moore and Andy Goldsworthy.“Pierced Form” of pink alabaster from 1932, thought to be one of her first iconic hole sculptures.
Arliss with a Hepworth sculpture in the garden of Trewyn studio.
I recommend this trip if you are traveling in that part of the country.
A recent photo of Hepworth’s “Single Form” in front of the United Nations Secretariat building.

Women As Sculptors

Introduction: Women as SculptorsFemale Sculptors

Who knows when the first woman picked up something sharp and decided to use it to carve an image in stone? The studies of many early ethnographers and cultural anthropologists indicate that women often were the principal artisans in the cultures considered as Neolithic, creating their pottery, textiles, baskets, and jewelry. However, no mention is made of stone carvers at this point.
The earliest three-dimensional public artworks made by women were wax figures. These were life-size clothed effigies for which women modeled the hands and heads, hyper-realistically, in wax. (The clothes were, probably, made by women too, but there is hardly any research on this yet.)
Women built a specialist tradition in wax modeling, going back at least as far as the middle Ages, when nuns made candles, flowers, and statues of saints in wax. In America, Patience Wright (1725-1786), who had not only a talent for art but a talent for self-promotion as well, is usually credited with being the first professional woman sculptor.Patience began modeling in bread dough and local clay. Widowed early, she turned her hobby into a means of support. Wax was readily available from candle makers and required no tools or training to use. Capitalizing on her talent and forceful personality, she began a traveling wax works show, moved to London, met Benjamin Franklin, was received by and modeled portraits of the king and queen, and became a legend in her own time.
During the eighteenth century, a number of enterprising women, took up wax modeling, among them Marie Grosholtz (1761–1850), later known as Mme Tussaud. These women specialized in waxworks of prominent contemporaries, and some even traveled from city to city in order to show their homemade, but very popular collections of waxworks of prominent contemporaries to the local public for a fee.
 Such work, which continued through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, all suggest the sculptural back doors through which eighteenth-century women artists entered the domain of public sculpture.  In wasn’t until the mid-1800s that a new generation of women stone sculptors emerged. Going against the accepted role of wife and mother, these women were often ridiculed and ostracized. The lucky ones had the financial and emotional support of their families and the private means to afford materials and formalized training. In America, women could attend academies such as the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League in New York, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and the Art Institute of Chicago. However, many chose to study in Italy and established studios there, taking advantage of the company of stone carvers and craftsmen as well as the ready supply of white statuary marble. These artists worked in the prevailing neoclassical style for their monuments and commissions. The first “school” of women sculptors arose around Rome based Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908,) Anne Whitney (1821-1915) and Edmonia Lewis (1844-1911.)

Six of the many women who broke through the gender ceiling

1856 marble Beatrice Cenci by Harriet HosmerHarriet Hosmer (1830-1908)

began her life in Watertown, Massachusetts and from an early age was often to be found in a clay pit near her home “modeling horses, dogs, sheep, men and women.” Her high spirits and strong will earned her expulsion from school not just once but three times. After school she decided to pursue sculpture in earnest. Although her father encouraged her, the rest of Massachusetts was not so understanding. Even her friend Nathaniel Hawthorne despaired over her unmarried state and her “jaunty costume” which consisted of a “sort of man’s sack of purple broadcloth, a male shirt, collar and cravat and a little cap of black velvet.” Fortunately, she came from a supportive family who enabled her to go to Rome and study. Even though her “Beatrice Cenci” (1857), was a triumph at the 1857 Royal Academy exhibition in London, she nevertheless still had to deal continually with rumours that one or another of her male associates did her work. Slander and prejudice dogged most of her career. Anne Whitney (1821-1915), also from Massachusetts, was driven by a passion for social justice and many of her sculptures reflected her social sympathies. Her colossal “Africa” (1864, destroyed) embodied antislavery sentiments in an idealized neoclassical form. Sometimes her work proved too controversial—for example, Roma (1869), a realistic depiction of the city of Rome as an impoverished old beggar woman, which with its irreverence caused a sensation when it was exhibited. Experiencing much of the same prejudice that Harriet Hosmer faced, and with a similarly supportive family, Anne too went to Rome where she was one of several young American women sculptors who went to work there among their male colleagues. In 1875 Whitney won a national commission to portray abolitionist Charles Sumner, but, when it was discovered that the designs were by a woman, her submission was rejected. 

Marble 1867 Forever Free. Edmonia LewisEdmonia Lewis (1844-1911)
had not only to struggle with prejudice against women sculptors, but also against her mixed black and Chippewa heritage. After school she went to Boston, the center of liberal thought at that time, and began studying with Anne Whitney. Eventually, she too went to Rome to study, there creating life-size marble works celebrating emancipation and her Indian heritage. Although some feel that her work lacks the conventional polish of some of her contemporaries, her passion, expressiveness and ethnic content have great appeal. Her life-size marble “Forever Free” powerfully symbolizes the emancipation of black people. Lewis said that she was expressing her “strong sympathy for all women who have struggled and suffered.” Refusing to be stopped by racism or the patronizing attitudes of her times, she became the first major black sculptor in America.

3 Youth Taming The Wild by Anna Hyat HuntingtonAnna Hyatt Huntington (1876-1973)
 
In the early 1900s, although it was still considered odd for a woman to choose sculpture as a vocation, more and more women became accepted. One of the most respected and influential, was the renowned sculptor of animals, Anna Hyatt Huntington, who broke new ground for women sculptors. Her bronze “Joan of Arc” (1915) was the first equestrian statue by a woman. Independent of spirit, her formal training was short and she could often be found at the Bronx Zoo, “a tall young woman in a tailor-made frock and red plumed hat, doing a clay study of a bison.” She did not attend art school aside from studying briefly at the Art Students League in New York City. Huntington was a self-made success with a natural talent for modeling detailed sculptures of animals and enormous equestrian sculptures portraying the likes of Joan of Arc (New York City), El Cid (New York City and Seville, Spain), and Andrew Jackson (Lancaster, South Carolina.)
Although she had no plans to marry, she finally accepted the repeated proposals of wealthy philanthropist Archer Huntington. Now, with unlimited financial resources at her disposal, she was able to work on a larger scale and support the work of other artists. The Huntingtons were responsible for the founding of fourteen museums and four wild life preserves. The most famous of these being the 9,000 acre Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina founded by Anna and Archer in 1931. Originally intended as a setting for her sculptures, she soon commissioned works from her friends and it eventually developed into this country’s first public sculpture garden and has the world’s largest collection of figurative sculpture by American artists in an outdoor setting. This award-winning sculptor lived to be nearly 100, making art until the year before she died.
Abraham Lincoln by Vinni Ream

 
Vinnie Ream (1847–1914)
Ream is the sculptor of an iconic marble Abraham Lincoln that stands in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol (unveiled 1871.) A virtually untrained 18-year-old, Ream was the first woman to win such a commission from the federal government. She completed a plaster model for the statue in her studio and then, accompanied by her parents, took it to Rome in 1869 to translate it into white Carrera marble. In 1875, up against better-known male sculptors, Ream again won a major commission from the U.S. government, this time for a bronze of Civil War hero Admiral David G. Farragut. She went on to create portrait busts of other military and political figures of that era. Two later sculptures—Samuel Kirkwood (1906) and Sequoyah (1912-14)—are displayed in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall. Ream abandoned sculpture for many years in deference to her husband’s wishes, but in her later years she executed a statue of Iowa governor Samuel Kirkwood (1906), as well as the model for a statue of Sequoyah (1912–14), both for Statuary Hall in the Capitol.

The Three Bares 1931 By Gertrude Vanderbilt WhitneyGertrude Vanderbilt Whitney 1875-1942
Bearing the surnames of two notable families, Gertrude could certainly have gotten by as a socialite, but she became a highly influential art patron (cofounding the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1930) and pursued sculpture, finding that she had a natural talent for it. Whitney created numerous dramatic memorials throughout the country and the world. Some of her better-known works include The Titanic Memorial (1914–31; in Washington, D.C.), The Scout (1923–24; in Cody, Wyoming), and the Peter Stuyvesant Monument (1936–39; in New York City).

But ironically, the prevalence of stone sculpture by women during the Suffrage Movement of the latter part of the19th Century and the early 1900s began to take a downturn in post-war America. Around the 40s, the image of woman as homemaker seemed to take over and it wasn’t until the feminist movement of the 1970s that acceptance of women in new fields began to be seen again. Little by little, prejudice against women as sculptors grew less adamant and by the late 20th century there were many successful women stone sculptors. Cleo Hartwig (1911-1988), Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975,) Jane B. Armstrong (1921-2012) and Anna Mahler (1904-1988,) to name only a few. It has been a long slow ascent for women as sculptors. Starting in caves making household crafts and goddess worship paraphernalia, they were denied anything much more than that until a few began modeling figures in wax to make a living with traveling displays. With a few lucky breaks and access to some money, a handful of women began producing world-class art, allowing them to finally force their way into what had been man’s domain and produce their own renaissance.

Here’s to women everywhere, past and present, who have worked hard to follow their muses and create their magnificent art that we see throughout the world today.

Exotic Peru

Dear NWSSA, Vic Picou and Alfonso Rodriguez Medina

I’m listening to Peruvian music and it takes me zooming back 4,500 miles to Exotic Peru. The clock went too quickly, yet I tried to take in each every awesome moment. Images of antiquity and mystery, the faces, and hugs of gentle people, the haunting flute music, bromeliads growing at 10,00 feet, the magnificent clouds over the snow laden Andes, the current art of the children and the mastery of stone work. Ahh, these deep impressions on my soul. Like being transfused with cells of granite, bright colors and the pulse of real life.

Machu Picchu Inca stoneworkThanksgiving was spent with Alfonso Rodriquez Medina and his three loving sons, at their home and marble factory in Lima. Visiting him in his homeland was unforgettable. If you don’t know Alfonso, he attended Camp B several times. This master craftsman danced while he forged tools. He sang as he carved stone as gifts to the auction.

On this visit, he gave me a lovely 10” marble carving of ‘mother and child.’ Alfonso would like to attend Pilgrim Firs 2018. (Maybe we can arrange a teaching appointment for him. You’ve got to know this fine gentleman.)
David Webb at Machu Picchu
Traveling with Dave Webb (NWSSA friend) and his partner Gene, plus meeting new friends in our small group of sixteen, was fun. Being south of the Equator for the first time was a big hit on this trip arranged by Friendly Planet.com/Exotic Peru.


Machu Picchu Granite hitching post The stone edifices of hundreds of years ago brought up many questions. How were these multi-ton boulders of granite, andesite and basalt moved uphill, precisely carved and installed without mortar? They remain in place, but when earthquakes occur, they “shake, rattle and roll” back into place. I think the Inca people had help from “galactic travelers” who knew stone and tools to create this engineering marvel.

At Machu Picchu, (7th wonder of the world) on November 27, I contemplated Inca life, and their mysterious disappearance, the Spanish invasion/colonization, and the clash/assimilation of cultures. I tried to grasp the tale of their history, but the “tales” are conflicting. I saw remnants of their toils and their obvious loss. How was life for the five hundred people who dwelled there? That night, I “astral projected” back to Machu Picchu, an experience not to forget. (I didn’t climb the Inca Trail, but I saw the crystals in the granite and the green of the grass.)

Vic PicouIn closing, I strongly suggest going to Peru. Consult your MD about Rx for high altitude sickness prevention, and enjoy the coca leaves and tea!

Ve A Peru!'Mother and Child" Carrara Marble, Alfonso Rodriguez Medina, Peru    Stone walkway of Cusco

You might want to check out some of these amazing places on the web.Salt Works of Maras
  • Larco Herrera Museum, Lima (45,000 Inca ceramic items) and impressive figurative stone collection, and a fine restaurant.
  • 15th-century Franciscan Monastery of San Francisco in Lima.
  • Cusco, the ancient capital of the Inca Empire.
  • Pisac, the ruined mountain city with its marvelously terraced hillsides.
  • Ollantaytambo, an Inca site.
  • Maras Salt Works
  • The iconic Machu Picchu at 8,000 feet
  • Chinchero in the Southern Sierras at 12,200 feet.

'Crossing Point' Finds a New Home

IN LA CONNER, WASHINGTON“Crossing Point” in its new location in Conner Waterfront Park on the Swinomish Channel.
By Tracy Powell

Editors’ note: The day was bright and sunny; the kind of day that can draw stone carvers out into the open air to work and then drive them back inside when their hands and feet go numb. It was the end of the first week in December in La Conner, Washington and the outside temperature hovered around the 40 degree mark with a chilling breeze blowing up the Swinomish Channel.
A La Conner city work crew, dressed for the weather, was using a big forklift to transport two granite boats, a large wheel/drum and a reader board from the Skagit County Historical Museum, up on the hill, down to the new and still under construction Conner Waterfront Park. A half mile of boardwalk, now about half built, will connect the city center to the new Park, with shops and cafes on one side and the Swinomish Channel on the other.

A La Conner City employee steadies the canoe as the forklift moves it to its new channel side pad. Tracy Powel watches from a safe distance.CROSSING POINT is the name Kalia Gentiluomo gave to her original project after a, now gone, pioneer swing bridge over the channel. In its final iteration, it included three pieces: a Native American canoe, a tugboat used by the settlers and a commemorative wheel/drum with inscription.The canoe coming to rest in full view of houses on the Swinomish Indian Reservation, Fidalgo Island

The initial carving work was done at the 2005 Camp Brotherhood Symposium by a host of NWSSA members using granite provided by Marenakos. It was a joy to behold the crowd of carvers, who spent the week joyfully drilling, wedging, hammering and grinding, to rough out all three pieces at once. When the symposium wrapped up, the sculptures went their separate ways, for their final carving and finishing. Kirk McLean took home the Tugboat and Dan Michael took the Canoe, and with the help of half a dozen heroic NWSSA carvers, finished them beautifully in the next several months. Lisa Ponder completed the third piece, the Wheel/Drum), by sandblasting the lettering, which reads “Welcome Friends and Relatives” in English and Lushootseed, the local native dialect. An interpretive sign was made by Marenakos, of Wilkeson sandstone.Conner Park with “Crossing Point in place as viewed from the Rainbow Bridge in La Conner.

This ambitious collaborative project was presented to the Town of La Conner in 2008 as a tribute to the shared marine traditions of the Swinomish Tribe on Fidalgo Island and the pioneer settlers on the mainland. It was installed in Gilkey Square, at the west end of Morris St in La Conner, adjacent to the east landing of the old swing bridge. CROSSING POINT stayed there for a few years, and became a part of community activities such as concerts and holiday celebrations during that time. Access to “Crossing Point” is now over and through this pedestrian, stainless steel “Salmon” bridge designed and built by Ries Niemi. Tracy Powel and Oliver (Ollie) Iversen, one of the Park Commissioners, officiating at the relocation site.

Then in need the year the Town decided to renovate the square, and so the sculpture group was moved a few blocks away, to the parking lot of the Skagit Historical Museum on top of the hill. They patiently waited there until this year, when the La Conner Park Commissioners discovered them there and decided they would be fine additions to their new Conner Waterfront Park.

Now their journey is complete. On December 7th they were all hauled back to the shore, and carefully placed together on the sand, within sight of their previous location, up the channel. They will once again become integral parts of a popular gathering spot where they can continue to remind residents and visitors of the shared marine heritage of the two neighboring communities, Swinomish Reservation and Town of La Conner. It is also appropriate that the name of NWSSA is back in public view.The tugboat and the canoe resting easy, framed by the Rainbow Bridge, another crossing point between two cultures.

The Wisdom Seeker in Olympia

Wisdom Seeker, Leon White Wisdom Seeker
Hi all, I recently installed a Sculpture in the City of Olympia for the 2017 exhibit on the downtown waterfront. My piece "The Wisdom Seeker" is four 4 feet high x with a nine 9 inch diameter. I carved it from Sandstone with and then added the Gold Leaf gold leaf. 


I didn’t win the “People’s Choice” award so the city did not buy my sculpture, but if you want to swing by the waterfront in Olympia, you can still see “The Wisdom Seeker” standing tall and looking for any wisdom that might happen by.

- Leonardo White

Where Are They Now? Michael Naranjo

WHERE ARE THEY NOW…….
Michael Naranjo
Michael A. Naranjo grew up on tribal land in Northern New Mexico. His mother was a potter, and it was through experimenting with her clay that he began the creative journey that would become his life. Ever since childhood, Michael had dreams of becoming a sculptor.

In 1967, at the age of 22, Michael was drafted into the US Army, and sent to Vietnam. On January 8, 1968, Michael’s platoon was caught in an ambush in an open rice field. Michael was hit by a grenade and would never see again. Both eyes were enucleated and he lost most of the use of his right hand. Rather than deter Michael, however, his injury made him more determined to fulfill his childhood dream. He began sculpting again while lying in a hospital bed in Japan, waiting to heal. Michael began simply, by “creating” a worm — basically, starting over.

Some of you may remember Michael when he came to teach at Camp Brotherhood in 2002 He is a gifted teacher and impacted many of us who had the opportunity of working with him.

“...Regarding ‘tools’ or ‘things to bring’, I always have my ‘tools’ with me, as I basically use my fingers and sense of touch; I rarely use conventional tools because I can’t always tell what the tool “sees”. I need to be in constant contact with my material, and though I encourage participants in my workshop to join me in this experience, participants are certainly welcome to use whatever else they are most comfortable with. Things that you need to bring to my workshop: your thoughts, your memories, your feelings, and, of course, your creative energy are all we really need to create.” - Michael


Michael’s daughter, Jenna, is making a feature film about Michael and his life as a sculptor working against-all-odds. To view a five minute preview, go to: http://www.DreamTouchBelieve.com 

Googling Michael turns up many links, including:http://www.collectorsguide.com/fa/fa116.shtml

Email Michael directly at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Disappearing American Rock Shop

Rose Quartz
By Michael E. Yeaman: NWSSA Roving Reporter

When was the last time you wandered into a Rock Shop?
You know what I am talking about…or do you? Perhaps you have never been in one of these places of dying Americana. If so, this confirms yet another aspect our 21st century, increasingly digital world. There is much to lament about this vanishing institution of the American West. For many stone sculptors, these lost shops provided us childhood introductions into the world of stone and ultimately sources of carving material when we picked up our first hammer and chisel. Often these places would be found in the smallest of towns, especially in the West, and be owned by former miners, rock hounds or just old fogies out to make a buck. The rustic ambience of these stores was usually somewhere between mystic temple and junkyard. Yet, we always seemed to find something we couldn’t leave without. And although there will always be the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show (the TGMS), Marenakos, Neolithic Stone and whatever Pat Barton shows up with next year; where will we be without these sources of divine geologic inspiration?

Richardson Rock RanchThe Richardson Rock Ranch

The glorious past is not quite dead yet, as demonstrated by my recent visit to the remarkable Richardson Rock Ranch. Located just north of Madras Oregon, off an abandoned spur of highway 97, this place is ideally located in the middle of nowhere. Besides having a classic rock shop, this site is surrounded by a yard of rough dimension stone as well as being a favorite site for do-it-yourself geode digging. It has been owned and operated for over 43 years by Johnnie and Norma Kennedy Richardson. I met Norma directing hordes of parents and their fanatical geode/thunderegg-hungry kids one afternoon this last August during my visit there. She was courteous but direct in describing where I could find what I was looking for and how much it would cost per pound.

As I walked outside, I knew I was in the right place…acres of stone and most of it in carving dimensions. This was no ordinary, dusty mom and pop rock shop back-water. Over the decades Johnnie and Norma have built an oasis of stone far from the distant annual show lights of the TGMS. From boulders of smoky quartz to endless piles of black obsidian, the Richardson Rock Ranch seemed to be a lost world of carving potential. Long after I left, I have continued to wonder just who do they sell these remarkably diverse raw materials to? During my visit there I saw only the geode-hunting masses barely stopping to look over these Elysian Fields before rushing to the outcrop with pick-axes in hand. Oh well, all the more for me! Michael Yeaman holding some treasures

I took my time surveying what seemed like endless possibilities of sculptural potential. Most stones had the heavy rind of transport/abrasion which required me to use my geologic imagination to picture what might lie beneath the surface in a final polished piece. In the end, I decided on four very different pieces; a finely layered piece of banded iron formation from Australia, a fascinating blue boulder of apatite from southern Madagascar, a cored fragment of highly silicified petrified wood from eastern Oregon and finally a beautiful shard of rock crystal from central Brazil. Stay tuned for the sculptures that will come from these remarkable stones.

ThundereggsAnd what about digging for my own special treasure of thundereggs in the red, dusty, 100 degree outcrops of the Richardson Rock Ranch? Why bother when the biggest ones have already been found and put in a take-away bin for my pleasure.
Long live the American Rock Shop!

Bob Leverich’s Schoolyard Commission in Granite

Bob Leverich’s Schoolyard Commission in Granite Bob Leverich
By Bob Leverich


Hi NWSSA friends, Lane and Penelope have asked me to write a short report on the big boulder split I did with help from several of you last June, along with some background and an update on the project it’s part of – a sculpture on the grounds of Vashon Island High School, commissioned by the Washington State Arts Commission.

ConceptBackground – After interviewing and being awarded the job at the end of 2015, I went to work researching the island and the school and developing concepts. The selection committee chose a concept centered on the metaphor of drawing out or educing – the root meaning of education. I presented dimensioned drawings, a large model, stone samples, and budget in October and selection committee approved unanimously. I told them I’d be using Cascade Granite. With lots of help from Rich Hestekind and Kentaro Kojima, I identified and tagged three large pieces of talus at Marenakos Stone to use for the horizontal stones in the piece. Finding just the right boulder proved to be a real challenge, particularly at this scale. At their suggestion, Rich and Kentaro and I visited a large gravel pit quarry with lots of boulders in Ravensdale, southeast of Seattle on a glorious October day. I looked far and wide for other sources but ultimately chose a large granite boulder at Ravensdale.
Ravensdale Quarry ready to split
After lots more work on the budget, I signed the final Commission Contract in March. Marenakos cut flat bottoms on the three stones in the yard and delivered them to my work site in Olympia. Because of its size, we would have to split the boulder in the Ravensdale quarry. I got lots of good advice from NWSSA members, particularly George Pratt, and sculptor Jesse Salisbury, about boulder selection, grain structure, bedding planes, and splitting tools and strategies.

The Split – Very early on a Saturday back in June, we loaded up my pickup with a generator and lots of supplies and headed to the Ravensdale gravel quarry. We had a good group of helpers and onlookers: Pat Barton, Ken Barnes, Kentaro Kojima, Sue Taves, and Bill Gallagher from NWSSA, my assistant Grant Walker, four Evergreen State College students, the quarry watchman Walt Schorno, and several friends from Olympia. Ravensdale Quarry Split

The boulder was about 6’ high and shaped like a chubby equilateral triangle, about 9’ on each side. Our first strategy was to go from one flattish face of the stone to the opposite corner. We drilled 36 holes 5 inches apart along our proposed split line, each about 6 inches deep. We inserted the feathers and wedges and hammered them in, waiting between each round of hammering. Several broad thin pieces cleaved off along the split line. The splits headed sideways through the weathered and more friable surfaces – a shorter, easier path – instead of down through the mass of the stone. One large corner of the stone split off from top to bottom – now the stone more oblong than triangular. We were all a little nonplussed, and I was flat out bummed. We took a break.

We asked Walt to get out his big Case tractor with a bucket and backhoe, and he dragged away the big corner piece, so we could consider our next move. It was around 2 PM, and we decided to try again, going perpendicular to the freshly split surface and across the now oblong stone. We drilled our holes, hammered in the feathers and wedges, and timed ourselves carefully this time, waiting 15-20 minutes between each round of hammering, and watching for minute cracks to appear, which they eventually did, moving from hole to hole and then through the entire stone, now a little more than six feet thick. We were careful to work the sides more than the more friable top. After five or six rounds of this, we heard the distinctive crackling as the stone gave way. Suddenly hammer blows on one side were causing the other side to split as well, and we knew we were through. We were all pretty excited and happy! That was right around 5 PM. I was, and still am, very grateful for all the help and good wishes from NWSSA members that day. The energy was with us!Texture
FretCutWe all learned some things to consider the next time around - take account of surface weathering, consider carefully how both the mass and the form of the stone will constrain (or not!) the splitting plane, take plenty of time between rounds of hammering…. We might have intentionally taken off a corner at the start, to get a more oblong shape, and to tell us more about the grain direction of the stone. I’d say our first split line was running somewhat perpendicular to the bedding plane. It’s worth noting that the grain direction of the boulder became much more obvious to me recently when I began doing some final pointing by hand on one of the split faces. As with wood, hand tools tell you things about a stone that power tools simply don’t!Crane

Update – Marenakos cut flat bottoms and drilled pin holes in the boulder halves and delivered them to the work site. I worked hard on the five stones all summer with three part-time student assistants and several others who filled in here and there. We did our roughing out with angle grinders rigged with water feeds to keep down dust from cutting and grinding. We made time to visit the Pilgrim Firs Symposium for a day, to set up my work in a show at the Vashon Center for the Arts and to host lots of visitors, including Ken Barnes who brought Uchida-san, Maori sculptor Barry Te Whatu from New Zealand, and Kentaro Kojima with Ida-san and his two Japanese colleagues (Makiko Nagano and Mitsuo Saiki) from Suttle Lake, as well. We pushed hard to get the stones substantially complete by the start of October and set them up in their final configuration. I took final detailed measurements and made full-size plywood templates. Then I staked out the site with the site contractor to start his work. I hope to schedule installation later in November, and a dedication sometime after that. You’ll all be invited!  13covershot

A Frog is born.. obstetrics by George Pratt

George, they said, we need a granite frog for Haller Park.Frog1

Frog? Hmmmm. Yeah, I guess that’s my thing, I said.

So it was that for three of the harshest months in memory, I crouched shivering in a cloud of dust over a granite block that had langished in my yard for twelve years, chips a-flying to expose the heart, soul and body of a frog that I had long suspected was harbored therein.

The avocation of granite carving is the quintessence of those old expressions ‘labor of love’ or ‘bed of pain’ as you may wish to choose. To prevent my brain from entirely turning to jelly during the unceasing 12-week ordeal of manhandling a screaming diamond-grinder, I took to mentally composing a farcical account of my progress as I beavered away. I recorded that bizarre narrative every few days in my journal. Bizarre? The following will illustrate:

frog2March 15, 2017 - Today as I worked, I drifted into concerned speculation as to what might be the gender of this frog. At first, I concluded it was surely male because although it’s ultimate home will be Arlington, ‘way down there in Washington State, it stubbornly exhibits a stony reticence in asking for directions how to get there. It’s been said that’s a male thing— though mainly by my wife, mind you. But now I’m not so sure. Here’s why: You see, each spring I’m overtaken by an annual hankering to head out salmon fishing. Invariably, this yearning occurs just as the early grass needs cutting and our property begs for yardwork after a soggy winter. Naturally, I opt for the salmon fishing; I mean, what man would not?—but for some reason, this causes my wife to take on that silent, thin-lipped, granite-chinned look, familiar to all married fishermen. Today, prompted by sudden appearance of the sun, I summarily dropped the hammer and started boatward, when I perceived that was exactly the look the frog had taken on. So I’m now suspecting it might be female.

Well, I just don’t know what the truth is and I don’t have the energy to just turn it bottomside up and inspect the evidence in the time-honored way. I think the good folk of Arlington will have to work this out for themselves.frog4

For me, for now, it’s just ‘The Frog.’

March 28, 2017 . . . a Tuesday. A solemn, rainy Tuesday. How do I begin to relate what happened? All I can say is ‘O frabjous day, calloo, callay . . .!!’ —for this was the day when the Haller Park Frog exhibited the first definite sign of life—when it was born, so to speak.

frog5I knew the time was close, for I have been intimately connected to this frog for months; and you can’t be that close and not sense the stirrings within. When I absolutely knew, on this auspicious morning, that the frog’s time had come, I prepared very carefully. Oh, I wasn’t expecting a frenzied wiggling to begin, or peeing all over the place like an excited puppy. No. I knew it would be a more dignified moment than that. I made careful preparations. I shed my mask and glasses and tossed off my tattered gloves, revealing the earth-person underneath for the momentous occasion I knew was upon us. I stood resolutely in front of the frog, looking straight into its freshly carved eyes. It looked back in typical stony silence, its countenance one of stoic expectancy. I had carefully rehearsed my lines to make this magic moment happen.
Summoning up my gravest stentorian voice, I rested my hand firmly on the frog’s forehead, and barked sharply ‘STAY!” . . . and omigod! The frog stayed! No hesitancy, no reluctance—just pure, simple understanding and unquestioning obedience! And so the Frog announced its arrival. Oh, it was a moment. Thinking back these weeks later, I am still beset by the emotion of it—and sadly feeling the first pangs of loss, for I know it must leave me soon as it migrates south to its new home in Arlington.frog6

Goodbye, dear Frog. I love you. G.

If you arbitrarily put a line where you think the backbone should be—and don’t ever lose sight of it, you’ll be able to locate and rough out the components on both sides. Here, the centreline is telling us the eyes are not balanced . . .

It starts by guessing what is excess and busting it off with shims and wedges . . .

Judging where the extremities should be is also only by estimation at first. Fortunately, at this point there’s still stone enough to make adjustments . . .

Incubating an embryo frog in a nice cool blanket of snow will contribute to a healthy birth :-)

. . . a few weeks of assiduous fretting and all parts are organized. Keeping that backbone in sight ensures that both sides develop equally balanced.

By the time this issue is published, the Frog should be installed in Haller Park in Arlington. It will be on the grass with a cobblestone surround to about 6” up the waterline. Kids will be invited to clamber. . . and I gratefully invite all NWSSA members to hang around and tell the passersby ‘I helped George learn how to do that . . . ‘

Start Them Young


Curious by NatureWe often hear it 
said “We need young people in NWSSA.” I was asked by the Greater Gig Harbor Arts Foundation to create an art piece with 18 four-year-olds to be auctioned as a fundraiser for the Curious by Nature pre-school in Gig Harbor.

For this project, I cut a 1 inch to 2 inch fish shape of soapstone for each child to sand, polish and buff. Each picked the fish shape they wanted to work. We used foam sanding blocks flat on the tables so they could take the stone to the sanding pad. When ready, we gave each child a tiny dab of Tenax Creama Wax and a little terry rag for buffing. Each child also chose a colored glass bead for their fish eye. We requested two things of the children: No blowing the dust and the use of a wet wipe to clean their hands and space. In a couple of sessions and with the help of two teachers, the shapes were done.IMG 0352


As a “frame” for their work, I cut a cedar fish approximately 2 feet long and made a divot for each little fish to rest. The children also painted the tail and fin grooves. To avoid any child contacting epoxy I took the work back to my studio where I epoxied each little fish into the large fish frame. Next, I printed a chart showing which little fish was created by which child so parents could identify their child’s work. Three other media artists also made group art with the children. The auction of the art was a success!

- Sharon Feeney

Doratti Sculpture Studios Cuts Two Gargoyles

Pat Doratti has his stone studio in Nelson, British Columbia a small arts city in the Rocky Mountains above Spokane Washington. The Cutting Begins - Patrick Doratti Sculpture Studios

One of the interesting things he has there is a six axis robotic stone milling machine. Carl Nelson has worked with Patrick and this wonderful tool to create computer generated voids in some of his Dunite sculptures. 
Well Along with the Work
This article describes a commission Patrick has been working on. The client lives in a medieval style stone house near Calgary, Alberta. The job was to cut twin four foot high gargoyles from a five ton block of Carrara grey Bardiglio marble. No problem for Patrick and his magic cutter.

Patrick started by splitting the marble block into two equal pieces with wedges and feathers and a ring saw. He then scanned a plaster model with his in-house 3-D laser scanner, cleaning up the scan with his CAD software. The finished scan was then put into his CAM software which details the milling instructions for the robotic cutter.


Another view of the Robot at Work
After the bottom of each stone was leveled with the robot, a large cutting head was used to remove the blocky, excess stone. 
Then the intermediate milling was done to clean out the undercuts and hollows. The third pass was for the fine, detail work done in a zig zag pattern to finish the piece. The milling for each Gargoyle took about five days.

Since the client wanted a pitted, old bronze look, the finished stone was sandblasted, then sanded with 400 and 800 grit, but leaving some rough spots. Making the Stone Look Ancient

The required aging process uses a mix of black ash, oil, grease and a few other things. It was then wiped-down with a hand pad to achieve a matt finish with a very old weathered look. This takes some time, so it’s the gargoyles are still sitting in Pat’s shop being finished.

As you can imagine, technology comes with price tag. The shop rate is $100/hour but can be a big savings in time for large projects and also allows the artist to do small multiples like you would with the bronze process. Patrick is open to working with the artist’s budget.

You can reach Patrick Doratti through his email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Carving Complete on the Gargoyle Pair