Reading Carved Stone

["Anthony Marbella" <amarbella@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I've written to the list, so I'd
like to start by saying how much I've been appreciating
the discussion on reading carved stone. I can only bring
to the discussion what experience has taught me through
critique sessions that I've had when I was in college. I
majored in sculpture and my sculpture class was mostly
non-stone workers/non-carvers with the exception of
myself and one other student who was kind of a mentor to
me until he went off to grad school.

One thing in particular rings out in my memory. During a
crit (short for critique), the discussion turned towards
the work that I presented, an extremely simplified bust
carved from granite. The overall form was rather
Noguchi-esque as it did not represent any details of the
head or face, just highly polished surfaces, contrasting
or blending with rough point marks or the natural
surface of the stone.

Anyway, back to the crit. One of my peers brought up the
question of how to approach such a piece since most of
the other works were either welded steel, or cast
plaster, or assemblages of found objects, etc. My
professor added something to the effect that carving
stone is such a difficult medium that nobody has the
right to judge it unless they themselves have carved
stone before. Nobody else ever did carve stone before so
my crit ended up being a very fruitful session because
we discussed important sculptural concepts such as the
composition of curves, the use of light and shadow and
many other things that I can't even recall.

In short, I feel that carving is a process that can only
be truly understood by people that do it. I feel that it
is inappropriate to simply group it, with all the carved
works ever done, as a romantic approach to sculpture. In
my opinion carving is like an element of sculpture. Just
like wind, fire, water, or earth are separate elements
that sometimes work with one another or against one
another, but at any rate have always existed and always
will.

Carving as an element of sculpture can stand alone or it
could be infused with other sculptural techniques, but
has existed since the dawn of man and will persevere
throughout the ages.

Sincerely,

Sculptor in Pittsburgh - Anthony Marbella