There’s Always Hope

by Tamara Buchanan

What more is there to say? There is always hope: that suffering will end, that compassion will prevail, that the next stone will be more beautiful than the last.

This sculpture is in Verona red marble. I picked up this stone while in Italy carving even though I don’t usually carve highly colored stone. My preference is granite, basalt, white marble, and limestone. It is important to me to use light and dark, shadows, and reflection to help a viewer’s eye move around a sculpture. I often feel wild patterns and bright colors distract from that process in my work. Complex curves made to look simple work very well in this stone.

In the almost 30 years that I have sculpted stone, my work has covered a wide range. I usually have 5 or 6 pieces in process at the same time. Right now in the studio waiting for me are: a basalt fountain ready to be polished, a 5ft tall limestone homage to a cousin who is an Aleut who had to give up her salmon fishing, an abstract in Carrara marble, a garden Kami in limestone, a granite Nose that is 3ft tall, and a marble piece that probably will be some sort of mother and child figure. To make a statement succinctly has always been a goal. Almost all of my work has an organic feel and often when I am through I realize I’ve been working on one of my “issues.” I love to talk through my sculptures; they are often so much more eloquent than I.

Photo Caption: There’s Always Hope’, Italian red marble, 22” X 15” X 4”