Somewhere high in the mountains, far above the trees, and deep beneath layers of hard rock is the most beautiful stone sculpture that nobody has ever seen. Someday, this mysterious sculpture will live its destiny, which is to become soaked and saturated in human admiration. People will stare at the sculptures courageous curves and dramatic edges with awe. People’s sense of wonder and amazement will flourish and they will experience the sculpture as a catalyst for their own creative and artistic potential to ignite. The sculpture will change human lives forever and, like sculptures before it, alter the course of human history. This sculpture, despite its isolation deep inside a mountain, is real. It exists right now. Today.
The challenge, of course, like the challenge many of us face as stone sculptors, is removing the masterpiece from deep within the earth and high on the mountain so people may love and cherish it. As a stone sculptor myself, I can attest to the difficulty of such a project. First, the stone must be removed from the mountain, which requires a vastly technical collaboration of engineers, miners, and heavy equipment operators. Then, once the life-changing sculpture is isolated to a refrigerator size block, the carving begins. Angle grinders, pneumatic chisels, hammers, core bits, di-grinders, air compressors, dust masks, 110, 220, it’s on! Dust fills the air, eyes, and lungs as the action required to finally expose the sculpture to the human world commences. Then, one day, finally, after days, weeks, months, years, lifetimes, or generations of lifetimes the piece is complete and ready to fill its niche: to soak up human admiration and inspire beauty and love across the world.
Deep inside a mountain where nobody has looked before is the worlds’ most beautiful sculpture- waiting to be carved.
How many of us have been to an art gallery and looked at something on the wall and said to ourselves, “I could make that.” The art we interact with provokes our own creative spirit and offers a sort of confrontation to not only our creative potential, but to our potential to simply find the time to make something with our own hands and offer it to the world. We have all seen that bucket of spilled paint in an edgy art gallery with a $1500 price tag and laughed as we muttered “what the fuck, really?!” As an artist, I’ve heard people on numerous occasions mutter the words “I could make this thing,” while interacting with one of my stone sculptures in the gallery where I work. When I observe this, I have the same low brow and somewhat twisted internal response: indeed, you could make that thing, you would make that thing, and most of all you should make that thing. However, your life is probably too busy and so you can’t make that, you didn’t make that, and, spoken with hopes of being proven otherwise, you will not make that!
I believe, in the core of my heart, that 99% of humankind is more than capable of unearthing a beautiful reflection of the brightest part of their soul in the form of a sculpture, if only they had the tools, mentorship, and space to do so. The most challenging part of sculpting is not chiseling through the hard stone. The most challenging part of sculpting is chiseling away at the plastic shell of our modern existences to find the sacred time and place where we can simply take hammer to stone. We’ve heard this all before: the most difficult part of running is putting on your running shoes and the hardest part of doing yoga is getting to your mat.
To be an artist, we must assertively and diligently carve out time and space from our busy lives. In today’s world, the process is a monumental challenge and an even more monumental reward. I am a new artist (conventionally speaking- I know we’re all artists and everything) and a nearly full-time blacksmith, metalsmith, woodturner, and stone carver. Over the past year, I have been making a slow transition out of a full-time corporate job and into full-time independent artistry. The process has been both incredibly freeing and incredibly challenging. In order to carve out my artistic self, I’ve had to chisel away at many comforts. I’ve carved through financial security and at times the approval of my family. In my transformation to an outward artist I’ve struggled maintaining friendships. I’ve discovered there is a huge difference in people’s acceptance of the dedication of my time to a conventional job (which has a clearly defined and agreed upon financial and social outcome) and the dedication of my time to daydreaming in my workshop for endless hours (otherwise known as ‘being an artist’). To carve out a life as an artist takes work- hard work. Sometimes we need to bust out the 9 inch grinder and remove huge barricades to our artistic selves like quitting our jobs, ending toxic relationships, and overcoming negative patterns. Other times we need to carve delicately and lightly, careful not to penetrate into the flesh of the beauty we are hoping to expose.
Somewhere out there, in the mountains, the desert, or in the city is the most beautiful stone sculptor that nobody has ever seen. Someday, this mysterious sculptor will live their destiny, which is to inspire a sense of wonder and amazement and ignite a fire of creative and artistic potential in those around them. The sculptor will change human lives forever and, like sculptors before it, alter the course of human history. This sculptor, despite its isolation somewhere out there, is real. They exist right now. Today.
