re. fresh start

[Justin Rego <justin.rego@zzzzzzzzz>]

I am a 24 year old field archaeologist in Richmond, VA, USA....I
started carving stone about 2 years ago (although its not often that I
actually get a chance to carve). I recently started trying to knapp
obsidion and texas chert, which is in a way sculpturing stone, albeit
using another stone to make a controlled fracture, rather than a
hammer and chisel. It has a steeper learning curve I beleive, when
compared to traditional stone carving techniques, but I beleive it
plateaus much earlier....once you get it, its gotten! So far I have
only finished 1 carving in 2 years! Very bad! It was a 25 LB
rectangular block of raspberry alabsaster, now a female head
(romenesque).

I am currently in progress with 1 (originally) 90 LB block of blue
marble, a 45 LB block of portoro marble, a small 5 LB Venus statue of
transluscent alabaster, and a 20 LB piece of chlorite. I also have a
25 LB piece of black soapstone laying about...I think I got too
excited after finishing the first, and took on too many projects at
once....the 90 LB block of blue marble is going to be an underwater
scene largely inspired by Kelly Borsheim's marine sculptures and is
60% complete.....the portoro piece is 75% finished....it is a man
sitting, legs crossed "indian style", for lack of a better term, with
arms clasped on chest.....the venus sculpture is 95 % complete, I just
keep tackling it with the riffler...I am never satisfied that its
complete!

Obviously I am still a student, a learn much just from lurking on the
board....lotsa great advisa, usually! Thanks!