Lapidary Art Hobby: Why I Love Stone Carving

Professionally, I work as a geologist. Most days I travel around to different parts of the Midwestern States and look at real estate including gasoline stations and auto repair shops to determine if previous activities at those locations will cause an environmental impact. If they do, my colleagues and I will find and or design a way to help remediate the problem. I love my job and the work I do for the environment and the community, but my true passion lies not in working with the environment, but in the rock and stone of the earth.

If you were to visit the garage of my home, you would see a place full of various tools, rocks, and projects started, and some even completed. Pieces of limestone, quartz, even a few emeralds, rubies, and pieces of sapphire and topaz are scattered around the tables in their rough forms just waiting for me to unlock the sparkle and shine of the gems. The black sparkle of obsidian or volcanic glass is just waiting to be formed into statues or flint knapped knives. The limestone pieces offer a few hints to the various pieces of art that I first saw in the stone when I first picked the stone up.

That's right; I carve stone for a hobby. My tools include such things as a hammer and chisel; a grinding wheel and a wet saw. Other tools include a Dremmel for fine detail work, and various types of small files.

So the question becomes why do I enjoy working with rock and stone? I think I enjoy the idea of creating something with some movement out of something that seems so solid and immobile. Taking a piece of turquoise and carving out a statue of a mother and child is one way for me to gain the sensation that there is a little bit of permanence in this world of change and chaos.

Other times I think it's from my background in geology. Despite what you might think, stone is not as immobile or rigid. Given the right temperature and pressure combination, even the strongest rock can be reduced to a molten mass, easily formed by the earth processes into something completely different. While I can't produce molten lava in my garage, I can form the rock and stone into various different shapes with a few handy tools. Being able to do that makes me feel not so insignificant any more.

Of course, the stone itself truly controls what is created. The different minerals and chemical elements create areas of weakness and strength within the rocks, and it is the ability to use those characteristics that is essential in creating a true carving masterpiece. The art of learning to work with the rock and not against it brings great satisfaction once the piece is done.

So why do I enjoy stone carving? I guess the simple answer is because creation of any kind makes a person feel that much more connected to those forces that have truly created the world in which we live. And who wouldn't want that?