I don't recall what inspired me to do so ... but ... in 2004 I decided to find out what stone sculpture was all about. After doing a bit of research I found the Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust which, surprise surprise, is located on Portland Island. It was heaven! Basically, you wander around Tout Quarry to find the piece of stone you want to work, then you return to the outdoor workshop that's situated in the middle of the quarry and start carving. You get some tuition before you start but, without grain direction to consider, it's quite a straight forward process .... unless you're doing lettering!
I'd had an idea of what I wanted to carve for quite some time. Following on from my first wood carving - Diver - I wanted to do another piece that was suggestive of sporting movement. I actually found my piece of stone - which was a great lump - right at the entrance to the workshop area. I just about managed to lift it and get it to my stone bench.
By the end of the first day I'd started to create the basic shape. There was no finesse during these early stages. Big hammer, big chisel and lots of elbow grease.
We were very lucky with the weather. The first day was a bit damp but then it was glorious sunshine all week. That meant lunch at the edge of the quarry looking out over the beautiful Chesil Beach on the Jurassic Coast.
Over the week I made some progress but I left Portland with an awful lot still to do.
But, I was hooked. I loved the stone carving experience and so I looked for a way to continue and get this piece finished. The solution came when I found a teacher providing stone carving courses fairly locally to me. I spent a week with her in an old church building and then offered to help with renovations and maintenance of the building if I could use one of her benches at my leisure. That worked out really well and The Putt, over the following 6 months, got finished.
Once finished I made a small ball out of one of the other pieces of stone I picked up before I left Portland. This was just to give some suggestion as to what the sculpture represented. I then had it mounted on a piece of green marble to symbolise grass and .... presto!!!
I haven't done a vast amount of stone sculpture since then. It's quite a messy old job and it's also quite a noisy process. I hate noise pollution by others so I'm acutely aware of making excessive noise myself. Portland stone is Limestone which often has a lot of ammonite (fossil) content. That's a bit like granite and takes a fair old wallop to get through! And that's not quiet when you're bashing away in your back garden.
A couple of years later I had to do some work at the Travis Perkins branch in Gastard. Wouldn't you know .... right next door was the entrance to a Bath stone mine. So, I grabbed a few small pieces that were lying around said entrance - it would have been rude not to! Bath stone is much softer than Limestone and it has no hard bits to bash through. So carving this was much quieter.
In 2014 I had the opportunity to rent some workshop space which has really given my artistic bent some oxygen. Thereafter I dabbled with a few bits that I never finished but I liked the shape of the piece above so I mounted it on a piece of maple with some teal coloured resin in between. The piece below was made from Limestone and, as you can see, was mounted similarly to the one above.
A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to play with a piece of stone that was left over from a wall that my friends had built. I suggested using it to make a sign for their house which involved lettering. This is not my forte but I gave it a go. The outcome was not my greatest work but I think it looks suitably rustic which makes it a perfect fit with my friends old country cottage.
And that's about it. I have a pile of stone to be carved .... but I also have sheets of Valchromat and half a barn of Oak to carve. I'll get round to doing more when I get more time. With this year pressing on I need to direct my efforts towards pictures for the Guild Society of Artists annual exhibition next year. They will be carved from Valchromat which will be the subject of my next post.