A New Load of Stone

Thursday, July 2, I received my 45,000 lbs. of Indiana Limestone.

 Dereck Sheroan from JBB, Inc. of Hardinsburg, showed up early with the crane.  While we waited for the semi to get there, we took the top piece from my sculpture, Circle Seed, and laid it onto its side so that I could fix the bottom, drill and pin it to its base.

 Stonebelt Trucking brought the load from Bloomington.  Jordan, the driver, was 'spot on' - especially when it came time to turn his rig around.

 Rock #1 (at 11,200 lbs.) is unloaded...

 ... then rock #2 (at 6,000 lbs.)...

 ... and rock #3 (10,000 lbs.).

 Then 3 out of 4 slabs come off the truck...

 ... and, last but not least, a 16" thick slab gets a lift.  Now, it's time to get to work.

Ending the post with a wildlife shot: a fence lizard watches the whole thing from his personal piece of stone.
(All photos Meg White)

Indiana Limestone Quarry Run

On June 15th (my 59th birthday), I had scheduled a trip to the Victor Quarry that is owned by Indiana Limestone Co. / Polycor.  

Meg drove and treated a birthday meal of my choice.  A HUGE shout-out for Smokin' Jim's BBQ in Bedford, IN.  Their beef brisket, mashed potatoes, gravy and buttered  Texas toast is a FEAST!

 After lunch, we met Brent Blackwell who is in charge of block sales at the old Victor Oolitic location.  I had previously ordered 18,000 lbs. of slabs for a commission and wanted to find some carving blocks to make a full semi load.  The first choice was the smaller one with 11.2 circled (that's the weight in thousands of lbs.).

 The next pick was this 10,000 lb piece that is standing on its side.

 Brent Blackwell found this 6,000 lb. piece to fill out the 45,000 lb. load.

 I asked if we could take some pictures, so he offered to show us where they were quarrying.  They are slicing the quarry floor like a loaf of bread.  The slices are 4' apart and 10' deep and about 100' long.  After they take out these slices ( a half million lb. each), they plan to quarry underground back into the hill.

 They left this solid stone dike to hold the water back from where they plan to go underground.

 Brent then took us over to another location where they are taking out big blocks.  It's hard to capture this in a picture because the scale is so massive!  Way over there are huge pieces of equipment taking out a layer of usable stone.  Underneath red clay and a thick layer of St. Louis limestone (which is only good for gravel) they find the 40' to 60' thick layer of good Indiana Limestone that is called the Salem  Shelf.

 Blocks and more blocks!  I'm looking at enough for many lifetimes of full-time sculpting... it's overwhelming.

 Brent showed us where the swimming scenes were filmed for Breaking Away in 1978-79.  Meg and I had just been talking about that movie on the way up the road....

 Check out this huge all-stone corner post at a small cemetery.  Right in front of Brent is a high cliff that overlooks...

... the "Empire Hole" - where the stone for the Empire State Building was extracted.  I always like to have an adventure on my birthday - I LOVE to go exploring and find cool places.  But, it was unexpected that Brent would take the time to show us these awesome sights that are located on Indiana Limestone Co. property.  Thank you Brent for making this a VERY memorable birthday!

MAY 2020

Kentucky didn't officially open back up for business until May 11 (some states are still closed!)  I stayed busy all month.  Rainy days were taken up with various on-line marketing opportunities

- which will probably come to nothing...

I spent all the pretty days outside working on my huge and elaborately carved pair of hands.

 Here's what it looked like this morning...

 ... and another view with Ms. Catrina for scale.  It's approaching the final touches (I think).

 I sold 3 pieces this month!  For 37 years, I've had no other job but carving stone sculptures - and this virus shutdown has made me quite apprehensive about the future.  These sales have made a hugely positive difference in my state-of-mind.  Above is "Rolling On".

 I also sold  "Cozy"...

 ... and "Ascent" in white Alabama Marble.

I made a stone circle with 12 garden-sized sculptures.  They look like a "fairy circle" popping up in the lawn.  It would look great if I had a drone to see it from above...  It is hard to get a sense of it from the photo, but there is an impressive "feel" to it in person.

APRIL 2020

As everybody knows (all too well), April was "lockdown".  That meant "stay at home" and "practice social distancing".  By a staggering coincidence, that's what I do best! 

All jokes aside, there's nothing funny about what's going on...

The month started out great.  I sold this sculpture "Profusion" to a private individual in Michigan.  I will deliver it when that state finally opens back up for business. (In fact, Kentucky is still officially closed until next week, as well).  I was VERY thankful for this sale - it was a blessing and a positive affirmation when I needed it most!!!

 It was raining almost every other day, so I quit working on the monumental pair of hands that are outside.  I moved into the studio and made smaller sculptures.  I worked at a feverous pace - like "The wolf" was going to get me if I slowed down...

 I finished up this piece first, which is called "Jack's Bean Stalk".  It is Indiana Limestone, 57"H x 23" x 15" and weighs approx. 200 lbs.  

 This sculpture is a small scale study for a monumental scale work that I hope to create someday.

 The next piece that I made is called "Celtic Supercell".  It has clouds with Celtic-like spiraling glyphs.  Rain pours down in streaks of deep chisel marks.

 It is Indiana Limestone, 23"H x 56" x 16" and weighs approx. 500 lbs.

 The next piece was carved from a very hard (flinty) stone from Reed Quarry in Bloomington.

 It is called "Rolling On", Indiana Limestone, 14"H x 19" x 18" and weighs approx. 100 lbs.

 !!!SOLD!!!

 The piece that took the longest was this functional sculpture called "Twirling Smile Flower Seat".

 It is Indiana Limestone, 35"H x 45" x 14" and weighs approx. 1,000 lbs.

I wonder what May will bring?  Will things ever return to normal?

March 2020

March is when it all went to HELL.  Our show at the fairgrounds was a BUST!  There's a good chance that the show in Berea will be the same.  Meg had a show in Texas cancelled - and we haven't seen the end of it yet.  I'd made it through my 36th winter as a full-time stone sculptor.  But, when people can't buy bread, eggs, meat or toilet paper - who's buying art?!!!  I'm not worried about myself - "country boys can survive"  - and all that kind of stuff.  There are people who will lose EVERYTHING.  I pray that nobody that I know will lose their life...

 I'll admit, this whole thing has knocked the wind out of me.  Not much that I can do... so I took it out on a rock.  Above is a picture of "Now" taken last summer.

 Here's the current state of that piece.  It'll look better when it's finished and I clean the dark tree mold stain off the rest of the piece.

 Then, looking at the back view...

 ... and how it looked in the fall...

... and how it looked in the winter of 2014.
It's hard to feel motivated about creating art when everything is so crazy.  But, I'm not going to sit around and worry...
This isn't a time for drinking,
it's a time for thinking...
and I haven't a clue
what else to do...

February 2020

During the month of February, I worked steady and was looking forward to a good year.  I was creating a back-log of new designs for the coming season.  Both Meg and myself were coming up with some of the best sculpture ideas in our lives.  Things were still looking up...

 I had some warm days and was able to create this 44" x 13" x 13" garden sculpture.

 It's called "Firebird Sprout" and was inspired by the regenerative properties of the Phoenix.

 This is a particularly "flinty" variety of Indiana Limestone from Reed Quarry in Bloomington and has a combined total weight of 101 lbs.

 Meg used her crane truck to move the small bench to the larger bench.  They really belonged together.

 So, now I have a new sculpture called "Mother & Child".

 A huge portion of the month was used to get ready for doing the Home & Garden Show at the KY State Fairgrounds on Feb. 28,29 and March 1.  We'd always had pretty good luck with this and the Fred Wiche shows.  In fact, Meg and I met at this show 29 years ago...

I was also really looking forward to being in a small group show in Berea with 8 other stone sculptors.  I'd always had pretty good luck in Berea - they'd sold everything that I ever took to them...

.... and then came March.  Beware the Ides...