Tenn. Black Marble

["George Graham" <georgergraham@zzzzzzzzzzz>]

Bill,
Your information on Tenn. marbles is right on the mark. Thanks for the
website.

I have not worked with champlain black, but are probably right about it
coming from the lake Champlain area. Vermont has about 50 different kinds of
marble , the Gawet co is huge and would mainly be marketing stone that is
available in quantity, but there are many more types of marble in Vermont. I
heard of Radio City Black marble from vermont, that is very hard and
difficult to carve, which seems to typical of most black marble. I have
carved the alabama nd danby marble that Gawet has, and can happily tell you
that they are outstanding stone to carve. They are nothing like the old soft
sugary vermont marble of the past. If you run across some, grab it. The
verdi green marble is really more serpentine, and extremely difficult to
carve . Its beautiful but hard, fragile and brittle at the same time. The
grain goes all over the place.

I used the Tenn.  rose, light rose, cedar, and champion rose for many
pieces, and on a scale of 1 to 10,  they are all a 10. The only down side to
the rose marbles is their hardness. But in this day of carbide tipped
chisels, and diamond blades, there is no reason to shy away from them.

Sculptors have going nuts on this stone for over 100 years for good reason.
I work some old architectural  blocks of Italian marble that were just a
little softer then the Tenn. pink.

I have a book by fine sculptor who did a large body of work using many
different kinds of vermont marble, and Tenn. Pink. Her name is Jane B.
Armstrong, and her book is titled Discovery In Stone. I hope you get a
chance to see her work .
Finally, the alabama marble I spoke of above, really is from Alabama.

Thanks
George Graham