Stone Sculpture

Historical research project: I was to research a modernist stone sculptor from the 1850 to 1960 era and create a sculpture based on this artist's work.
I am inspired by Jean Arp. I am intrigued by his Human Concretion sculpture series in which he formed hard substances like marble and bronze into smooth, biomorphic shapes. I attempted to imitate some of these shapes using Agata Alabaster with some smaller pieces of soapstone.




"Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant or a child in its mother's womb." -Jean Arp


















I began by forming a "mockette" out of clay of what shape I intended to create with the stone. After drawing the intended shape on the side of the stone I began sawing off around the lines I has drawn. Using various files and rasp tools I continued to shape the stone. Once the general shape was achieved, I continued to refine the surface with a Dremel tool. I finished by polishing the surface with sandpaper and water and rubbed oil to the surface as a final touch.

One major setback in this project was time. First, I had to wait on my stone to arrive in the mail before I could begin carving. During this time I spent plenty of time in research, planning and drawing. Once my stone arrived I had to made adjustments to my design based on the shape of the stone. The snowy weather also took some work time away. So I had to alter my design once more. Rather than including another shapely stone attached to the first I simply made the one stone a little more visually interesting so it could stand alone as a strong piece. For display purposes, I decided to include a large rock for the sculpture to sit on as the base. I thought the size of the pedestal would be too overwhelming for such a small sculpture so the large rock acts as a “mini-pedestal”.