February Vacation

Midwinter break from school was marked by warm weather and a chance to get into the studio. For awhile now I have had the idea of setting two slabs (or maybe more) together to make a piece that would stand firmly on its own, and be connected, but dis-connect-able. I made a smallish one to try out the idea and I think it is working pretty well, and now I am carving one of the pieces with a take off on a very old design from one of my cherished ancient Celtic scabbard pieces.  I have a whole book of this sort of design, primarily from metal work, that inspires some interesting carving for stone. It's called Celtic Designs from the British Museum. 

These designs were created to embellish sword sheaths, many of them were found with the rotted bits of iron of the sword inside.

The round metal mallet is very handy for work on a harder piece
of stone or for removing material in a firm but controlled way.
I balanced the edge of the piece with sandbags and some extra stone

I had been fiddling with these two pieces of stone for months now, separately. One of them is featured in my NetWorks video; I am chopping away on it and the hammer is drowning out what I am talking about. The other used to be part of some sort of bench or step, and features a sweep of the edge of the old architectural carving that I wanted to preserve, and use to best effect.


With a bit more heaving the pieces off and on the table, I decided that there was a good way to work it out to have them fit together as per my plan. They were fairly heavy, being thick, so I thought I would try something different. The 'elbow' cut I made allowed for the large piece to weigh down the smaller one that supports it, and I was pleased at how stable the set up was.

Now to decide whether or what to carve on it!