Close to the stone

["George Graham" <georgergraham@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Marueen,

Your innocent remark has stirred up old debate that
really has no clear conclusion. I can only speak from
personal experience. Each artists deals with developing
their style and creative process in a very personal way.
The medium and tools used are a major part of the
creative process. As a letter carver,you would find that
carving an inscription on a granite slab is very hard
work. If your project was basic condensed roman
lettering, you could do it by hand (but the serf's would
drive you nuts), using a hammer and chisel, but if you
don't use a carbide tipped chisel, you better pack a
lunch! If you have a lot of work to do and are running
out of time, you might try using an airhammer and
carbide chisel to do more, faster, and you might then
have time to do even more work in the area you love.
Now, have you gotten farther from doing pure art? I
don't think so.

I'm convinced that Michalangelo had the best tools he
could lay his hands on. There probably was some old
master who was horrified that he wasen't using bronze or
iron chisels to carve marble. I would expect to find
only the best steel chisels in Michalangelo's studio
because he had a lot of work to do, and better tools
beget better results etc. etc.

My point is that all tools that serve your purpose are
there to be used, experimented with, and maby use in
ways that were never imagined by the manufacturer. We
are fortunate to live in a time when you can either go
as high or low tech as you wish. I learned to carve
stone using tools that were identical to hand tools used
500 years ago. I firmly belive that all beginners should
learn to carve using a hammer, point, claw, and flat
chisel first. It helps a person to learn the stone. Then
as you have the curiosity and money, you can branch out
to other tools.

The beauty working in traditional mediums is that we
draw upon traditions that go back to prehistory. You can
cave stone using a piece of flint if you wish, or move
up to an electroplated diamond saw blade that goes into
my diegrinder which is powered by my compressor which
puts out 80 cubic feet of air per minute,,,,,sorry got
carried away there. Actually, I do most of my carving
using a hammer and point. The modern tools help speed up
the clean up process, but my best creative work always
starts with hand tools.

To sum this up, no tool puts you closer or farther away
 from the stone. The tool is only as good as the user. No
tool is off limits. I will use what ever serves my
purpose.

Have you heard about the latest way to carve stone and
make it look like it wasen't handcarved at all? For
about 4000.00 you get a high pressure, fine point
carving torch that burns at about 2000 degrees and lets
you have finger tip control to get a flame finished .
You can carve with this thing! Of corse the manufacture
makes sure that you know that this thing might burn,
blind, maim, destroy all your surrounding proporty, and
kill you and all the innocent bystanders. Also, you
might go deaf, and the fumes might do permant damage to
you lungs. I'm not making this up!! So maby that acid is
not such bad stuff after all. This is just the latest
tool in stone carving, and it won't be long before
someone will come up with something that pushes the
envlope farther. So Maureen, all we have to do is choose
our tools and get to work!

I admire your ability to do hand carved letters. It is
an old method of carving that requires great skill, and
is a beautiful thing when done well. Where I live, you
can see beautiful lettering done on old slate
headstones, that are more than 100 years old, and look
like it was done this year. The style and grace that was
produced by people using only simplest of tools, proves
that there is nothing wrong with doing things the old
fasioned way. So keep up the good work.

I tried  to visit your web site, but could not find it.
Send your address again please.

Thanks. George Graham