In May I went on a stone carving course. I’ve wanted to give it a go for a while now: so much of my solo work is spent turning flat paper/pages/material into something 3-dimensional that I thought it would be good for me to try something more difficult. Plus, it was a new year’s resolution of mine to try to give my hands a rest from the scissors and challenge my patience levels.
Something the tutor (a stone carver, mason, lettercutter and amazing teacher) said has really stuck with me. She said that one thing she really loves about stone carving is that it’s anonymous – if you look at the stonework on old buildings, you don’t know who did it. There’s no signature, just the work itself – the result of techniques passed on down the generations. It’s a really pleasing thought because it’s so different from the egocentrism of being a creative person nowadays… I think that’s also why collaboration is appealing – you get to lose yourself in a bigger story.
