Introducing myself

Quoted text begins.While Henry Moore once said, "If you can't draw, you can't
sculpt", i would
say that is only one pathway to creativity. And a valuable one at times or
for some folks. But i can't draw and was thrilled to discover, many years
ago, that there are many ways to carve that are more direct! More exciting
and more adventurous than the work from drawings or maquettes. In fact the
"direct carving" movement is based on them.
End of quote.

Dear all - its a long time since i last participated in the
discussions but the above struck a chord with me - perhaps the quote
below which I cherish might do the same for others and provoke more
'stone experience

Isamo Noguchi wrote

'Sculpture may be anything and will be valued for its intrinsic
sculptural qualities. However, it seems to me that the natural mediums
of wood and stone, alive before man was, have the greater capacity to
comfort us with the reality of our being. They are as familiar as the
earth, a matter of sensibility. In our times we think to control
nature, only to find that in the end it escapes us. I for one return
recurrently to the earth in my search for the meaning of sculpture --
to escape fragmentation with a new synthesis, within the sculpture and
related to spaces. I believe in the activity of stone, actual or
illusory, and in gravity as a vital element. Sculpture is the
definition of form in space, visible to the mobile spectator as
participant. Sculptures move because we move. They say in Japan that
the end interest of old men is stone -- just stone, natural stone,
ready-made sculptures for the eyes of connoisseurs. This is not quite
correct; it is the point of view that sanctifies; it is selection and
placement that will make of anything a sculpture, even an old shoe. '

all the best mike williams