how to decide

[tobias]

I carved a huge blok of marble in brazil a few years ago. It was the first time Ive done thhis and so I made a few errors in process. I assumed I could get the stone in any shape I asked for ... I knew it would be better to work from a triangular shape and asked for this. Much to my dismay I got there to work and the stone was not at all triangular. This worked it self out and I made the sculptur to look like the maquette I submitted. This year i feel ready to go back and do it again and would of course like to circumvent this problem. Which brings me to my point. Up till now i have been making maquettes and not thinking about stone till after I decide if it will be a good idea. This morning I was thinking about a sculpture I would like to execute and it occured to me that instead of trying to fit a blok of stone around my idea I could fit my idea into a blok of stone. Iusually use found stone or glacial erratics to carve and dont buy stone from a quarry. This has lead me to carve directly and not do too much premeditation. Iknow there are more experienced carvers out there and I would like some input. thanks

[G. Murdoch]

Tobias,

Both approaches are valid. One can have an inventory of rock on hand, and wait for the form within the rock to reveal itself to you, or one can have a composition in mind and then find / order a stone which will accept that composition. Whenever I have a new idea for a sculpture that I would like to carve large, I carve a small maquette out of soapstone. This lets me work out some visual thinking and procedural issues. Making the maquette out of anything other than carved stone severely lessens the learning value of the model. Best of luck.

Graham