slate carver (WAS message from UK)

[Judy & Ted Buswick <jt.buswick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, Stephen.  I have a slate carver to recommend to you.   Ivor Richards  lives
in Bethesda and does wonderful bas relief and trompe l'oeil work in slate..  You
can check out his work at http://www.Lmu.ac.uk/ces/axis/ or at
http://www.btinternet.com/~ngps/ivor.richards/   Another person you might
consider is Bill Rice in Blaenau Ffestiniog who creates chalices and bowls of
slate -- though he may not have experience teaching, I'm not sure.

Your comments have made my day, since I am on the final leg of producing a book
about artists who use slate and I'm bogged down in writing photo captions and
sculpture details for the September first submission.  Newfoundland and North
Wales slates are compositionally very much the same.  I've seen charts that show
something like a 3% variation in the minerals of the stone.  For two maps (US &
UK) I'm plotting the major slate quarry regions and find there's slate history
in the Eastern Townships of Canada and in Newfoundland, but I can't find any
industry records in New Brunswick.  The US regions continue down the Appalachian
Range -- in Maine, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.
There are quarry regions scattered widely across the US, but the major industry
is in the East.  And, over here, it was common to marbleize slate for mantels at
the turn of the last century, but I haven't found any tradition of carving them,
as done in Dyffryn Ogwen between 1823 and 1843.

Just for your information:  Isamu Noguchi and Barbara Hepworth each had ten year
periods where they experimented with slate. Phillip King used it for a long
period.  Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy are using it still today, as are a
number of other artists (several from Wales).

So, as I said, your note lets me know my book may have some interest to people
other than my friends and family!  Thanks.  Good luck with your carving course
at Aber.  My husband and I enjoyed using the Library there and think it's a
great city.

Sincerely,
Judy Buswick