Art and the Art of Hand Finishing Stone and Wood Sculpture

My hands look like a man’s…a small old man. I’ve been sanding pieces like a maniac for weeks so whaddya expect? (It’s a great comfort to me that my feet still look very feminine.) My hands are shredded, cuticles mangled and my nails are sanded down into weird angles. Awesome! That means I’m ready to finish a few pieces.
A long time ago, I thought finishing a sculpture meant rubbing some junk on a piece to make it shiny. Right. Finishing a sculpture presents all sorts of dilemmas. There are things to consider such as techniques, toxicity, liquids, waxes, compounds, respiratory gear, and gloves. I experience ecstatic highs and the lowest of lows. (That sounds like a Motown song). I must also exercise extreme patience.

Soapstone is the softest stone and is said to be like “cutting butter”. Frankly I never felt like killing myself while cutting butter. I just have to look at the stuff and there are forty new scratches on it. I run crying like a little girl when I see soapstone and I think I deserve many awards and gift certificates for completing a piece. If you are gonna carve it just polish it with floor wax and a soft cloth, then go into rehab. My last piece may have cured me for life but she is incredible. She is called “The Activist”. And speaking of being an activist I am going to picket myself next time I even entertain the thought of working with soapstone.

Alabaster is a different story. Oh, I love me thum alabaster, baby! Can’t get enough of that funky stuff. It works with me. It is softer than marble, can take a reasonable amount of detail and handles the sanding process beautifully. Depending on the kind of alabaster I use there are a few choices I stick with for finishing. On occasion I use floor wax but it doesn’t provide the high sheen I am looking for. Sometimes it clouds and dulls the piece. Sometimes I use show car waxes, which can be hand rubbed but again, I don’t always get the gloss. Italian waxes work the best but, in my experience, are very tricky to pull off. If I apply it and hand rub it then sheen rarely gets truly glassy. If I use a polishing wheel with a power tool (variable speed grinder or drill) I risk ...THE BURN !!!! No, no, no….not the burn. Ahhhhhhh! If the friction is not just right (excuse me for living) the wax draws in the heat from the rotation of the tool and it burns deep into the stone. This is when I pick up the phone, call my son and say “ You need to come over and just kill me now, OK?” He, knowing me well, will usually just retort, “Well, maybe tomorrow”. After I beg him a few more times I go back and deal with my problem, which is SERIOUS. Serious, serious, serious. The burn is IN the stone like a big fat bruise. The only way to get it out is to re-carve the area, which changes the composition and ta-da…I am re-creating the entire thing. It used to be an oval and now it’s a triangle. At times this is a happy accident but mostly it’s a lot of unexpected work and I need a beer. Wood, on the other hand is much more forgiving. My friendly pieces are happy to drink gallons of teak oil and shine after days of hand buffing. A scratch is fairly easy to repair.

If things do not go well…meaning I missed sanding a few spots on the stone, every single flaw presents itself. I have to re-sand the entire piece and wax it again. Can it get worse? Oh, yes it can. It an get SCRATCHED. I once had a friend who said, “I’d rather throw a piece away than have it get scratched. I know just what he means. Unlike wood, if a piece of stone is deeply scratched the entire piece must be re-surfaced. It’s, like, a drag, man.

If all goes well the piece comes to life! Every vein, nuance of color, mineral deposit, light and shadow takes my breath away. The bells ring, the heavens open up, the surprises reveal themselves and I know I have experienced something worth living for. If you go to my website (below) and click on sculpture you can take a look at “The Orb” and get a tiny taste of it’s magnificent throbbing presence. Better yet, come in the late afternoon and watch the sunshine through the translucent glassy stone and behold another reality.