Form 1 | #4
FORM 1 SERIES | # 4
Marble (Canada)
26’’×8’’×8’’
2025
Marble (Canada)
26’’×8’’×8’’
2025
There’s almost never a straightforward way to get stone. Quarries are far, and sculptors aren’t exactly their top customers. But there are good people everywhere. If you show up with a smile and a six-pack, quarry workers won’t deny you the pleasure of crawling through their discard yard in search of treasure. I’d guess they find watching the process entertaining.
That’s where this piece came from. One of the keys to the creative process is trust. I know it, I teach it to my students, and yet with every sculpture, I have to relearn it myself. This piece — this black beauty with a red rim — was one of my teachers. I sculpt intuitively; I don’t plan or sketch. Each line is gradually shaped from an inner sense of harmony. But what if a sense of harmony doesn’t come?
With this piece, I drew my first line, dug my diamond blade in, and waited patiently for the sense of harmony to come. But it didn’t. Not on the first day. Not the fifth. I was struggling, doubting myself, trying to quit. The shape wasn’t there. It felt off. And still, every day, I came back and took myself through more hours of doubt. One evening, exhausted, covered in marble dust and disappointment, I put my tools down, took off my mask, and lifted the piece into my hands. I flipped it, turned it, set it upright and upside down — and there it was. The shape. The harmony. The balance. I stood there, with harmony in my hands, quietly tearing up.
If you look closely at the piece, you’ll see the red vein running through the narrow part — torn and expressive, like a scar. It is a scar. Stone is unpredictable. Pressure builds unevenly, attention slips, and sometimes the marble breaks. This one did. It crumbled in my hands after the piece was finished. Regret, blame, panic, heartbreak — all of it surged through me. Then I set the cocktail of drama aside and did the repair properly, in cold blood, with the help of my teacher, who has unrivaled skill in epoxy mixology. The result is a barely visible dark gray scar.
But then it happened again — another break. This time, I kept the cocktail of drama intact. Boiling with grief, I mixed bloody red tint into epoxy with sticky fingers, the studio table looking like a murder scene — which is exactly how I felt inside. And now, here it is:
That’s where this piece came from. One of the keys to the creative process is trust. I know it, I teach it to my students, and yet with every sculpture, I have to relearn it myself. This piece — this black beauty with a red rim — was one of my teachers. I sculpt intuitively; I don’t plan or sketch. Each line is gradually shaped from an inner sense of harmony. But what if a sense of harmony doesn’t come?
With this piece, I drew my first line, dug my diamond blade in, and waited patiently for the sense of harmony to come. But it didn’t. Not on the first day. Not the fifth. I was struggling, doubting myself, trying to quit. The shape wasn’t there. It felt off. And still, every day, I came back and took myself through more hours of doubt. One evening, exhausted, covered in marble dust and disappointment, I put my tools down, took off my mask, and lifted the piece into my hands. I flipped it, turned it, set it upright and upside down — and there it was. The shape. The harmony. The balance. I stood there, with harmony in my hands, quietly tearing up.
If you look closely at the piece, you’ll see the red vein running through the narrow part — torn and expressive, like a scar. It is a scar. Stone is unpredictable. Pressure builds unevenly, attention slips, and sometimes the marble breaks. This one did. It crumbled in my hands after the piece was finished. Regret, blame, panic, heartbreak — all of it surged through me. Then I set the cocktail of drama aside and did the repair properly, in cold blood, with the help of my teacher, who has unrivaled skill in epoxy mixology. The result is a barely visible dark gray scar.
But then it happened again — another break. This time, I kept the cocktail of drama intact. Boiling with grief, I mixed bloody red tint into epoxy with sticky fingers, the studio table looking like a murder scene — which is exactly how I felt inside. And now, here it is:
