Studio Process:
HAND CARVED STONE
A conversation is the best way to start any project. Meeting in person is ideal, but due to distance and or time, or even Global Pandemics, modern technology offers a variety of communication methods which also work quite well.
After meeting and communicating, ideas are explored, budgets are discussed and sketches are produced to clarify and expand the design conversation. When a final design is agreed upon, the proper material is acquired and the initial sketches are turned into full scale drawings which can then, with confidence and finality, be carved into stone.
Lettering for inscriptions is typically custom designed here in the Studio* and drawn with calligraphy pens or brushes. The stone is carved by hand, with a mallet and chisel; a slow process by modern standards, but one that yields beautiful results and offers stunning detail and flexibility.
The majority of the darker colored memorial and tombstones in the gallery section of this website are carved in slate. If you look through the photos you will also see memorials and art projects which use granite, limestone and marble. Each material has its own unique and beautiful characteristics which may or may not be appropriate to the unique requirements of a project.
No project is too large or small to have a conversation about. I hope you will be in touch.
Sincerely,
Adam
*A note on letter styles: any lettering or ornament that can be drawn, can be carved.
PAINTING:
internal landscapes & stone clouds
ARTIST STATEMENT
My paintings are about presence, a "world within a world", an interior expression of human experience, a look behind the veil of human assumptions and judgements, these paintings come from a place of experience & spontaneity.
BIOGRAPHY
The studio of Bulgarian American artist Mimi Keith, my first painting teacher, c. 1984, was a short walk across the Oswegotchie River in Wanakena, New York. Oil paints and charcoal drawings were an important entrance point to the vast surrounding wilderness. Wanakena is a quiet, pleasantly isolated hamlet and living there has deeply informed my experience of the world. After a Studio Arts Degree at the University of Vermont, internships, a quarter century of professional stone carving, and a few other worldly experiences mixed in, I have returned to painting with a renewed passion. The disciplined, precise, and often serious work of hand carving stone has matured my artistic sensibilities in a way painting alone could not. The freedom of abstract expression, once overwhelming, is now a glorious opportunity for experimentation and expression, both rejuvenating and profound. Painting, once a child's entrance point to the forest wilderness, is now a gateway to the internal wilds of the human experience.