In February 2017, I made a trip to Victor Quarry (now owned by IN Limestone Co.) to buy a stone for a commission that I had for Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, KY.
Brent Blackwell, who is in charge of block sales there, had this 32,000 lb. block scoped out for me to fit the dimensions that I'd e-mailed to him before the trip.
That left about 10,000 lbs. to make a full load, so we found the block that is on the bottom here. I remember that it was starting to snow about this time and the wind chill was getting close to zero, so I snapped this picture and got back into the warm truck without a whole lot of fussing about.
There was a serious variegation on one side of the Buffalo block. Brent was nice enough to have that cut off before it left the quarry. So, that made the original Buffalo block 22,000 lbs. when Padgett Crane unloaded it at the studio.
That stone became this 9,000 lb. Buffalo a few months later.
Most of the scrap was small pieces that went over a bank to make more flat land or into pot holes in my 1/2 mile driveway. There were at least 4 large corners that are becoming a fountain series based on the 4 elements of Fire, Water, Earth and Air. Here are 2 of them - which is what I've been working on lately.
The 10,000 lb. piece that came off the side of the buffalo had been laid aside...
... but, after delivering the finished commission, I split that piece in two and made "Hope" from one of the 5,000 lb. pieces.
The other 5,000 lb. piece got cut in two...
... to make "Fruition"...
... and "Lemon Slice Sunrise".
Remember that extra 10,000 lb. piece that I bought to fill out the load? It was stood up on the rail cart...
... to become "River Music Bench"...
... and "Enthusiasm".
The bottom right corner of that 10,000 lb. extra stone was split off to become this small sculpture "A little bit of Soul"...
... and "Flutter".
The bottom left corner became "Fireball sprout". There were, of course, other small corners and pieces of scrap in that load that either became more small sculptures or are sitting out in the weeds waiting their turn - but, that accounts for most of that load. It's easy to see that I try to make the most of stone when I have my hard earned money invested in the stuff.
So… I'm getting ready to go get another load. What's it going to become? I don't even know... and that's the exciting part.
