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  • Stonebard home
  • Doves
  • Lovers
  • Stone Circles
    • Rock Family Circle
  • Nature Boy
  • Gently Weeping Guitar
  • A Journey
    • Cottonwood Chapter
    • Chestnut Chapter
    • Oak Chapter
    • Cedar Chapter
  • KoKwalAlWoot's Story
  • Carving the Maiden of Deception Pass Story Pole
  • Events calendar
  • Book of Peace and Love

A Journey: Cottonwood Chapter

PictureSeeker




This phase began as a joint venture with my friend and fellow carver
      Brian, when we wanted to score some good carving stone in large sizes, and
      our friend Amy put us in touch with a quarry/mill in Indiana. We pooled
      our meager dollars and ordered a trailer full of limestone, I think about
      30,000 pounds. One block, by chance, was bigger than Brian’s truck could
      handle, so I got to keep it, all 3 tons of it. I had rented a forklift for the
      day.  The load was delivered by a hyperactive Russian trucker named Alexei, and
      after he departed, Brian and I picked out our favorites, then he loaded up
      his rig and went on home. I was left with a dozen nice blocks of Indiana
      oolitic to ring and drool over. The only one that was indisputably mine
      weighed much more than my little Ford tractor would be able to lift, so I
      decided to prepare it for carving before returning the forklift to the
      rental shop. I wacked off a two foot chunk, and stood the remainder
      upright next to my carving shed. It was 7ft high, 3 ft wide and 2 ft deep


     




      There it sat for several months, while the smaller piece  became a
      SEEKER, and other things happened, until one day I just knew what was
      hiding in there, and started carving. The design was based on a group of
      pieces called SLOW DANCE, all dancing couples partly embraced, and rooted
      into the earth as trees. Ents and Entwives? It’s a long story, involving
      Maralyne and me and our romance, but by this time the image had refined
      itself and become so clear that I whipped out a 1/5 scale macquett in a
      couple days. Then I waited a few more days while asking the block for help
      and pleading with the image to stay still long enough, and finally
      accepted the inevitable and dived into the stone.

       I carved like a madman, with hand tools only and with the purest of
      thoughts, for 19 days, dawn to dusk, in ecstatic frenzy, until I
      collapsed. It was done. Not one hesitation, not one doubt, not one
      recarve, not one lick more than necessary, it was done.

      SLOW DANCE.

      A man and woman, tenderly but solidly holding each other in a
      gently swaying rhythm. Their hands are becoming branches and twigs, her
      hair willow and his cottonwood leaves, and their feet are rooting deep
      into the earth. Muscles are smoothly hinted at, faces are serene, the
      motion is paused in a timeless embrace.

Picture
Slow Dance


      A very nice piece, and I love looking at it and touching it every day, but
      I have nowhere to show it and share it, when I happened to call my friend
      and mentor Myrna, who is just opening Monarch Art Center, a new sculpture
      park near Olympia. She says bring it on down, it will have a place of
      honor at the entrance to the park. Rent a truck, rent a forklift, off we
      go to Monarch. Myrna loves it and calls it a major work, and we place it
      in a very nice spot just inside the park. They are preparing for a big
      open house in a couple of weeks, and I drive home alone, $500 poorer, but
      elated. Nothing happened.

       A year later I pick it up and haul it back to Anacortes, where it stands
      proudly in front of the Depot Gallery and my first one man show as a stone
      carver. Nothing happens.

       Next year I enter it at Big Rock Garden, haul it to Bellingham, and
      George loves it, but nothing happens.

       End of that year I haul it home, now nearly $2000 in hauling costs and
      what to do with it now. It stands where it was born and I hug it every day
      and vow never to let it go again, until one day new friend Kay stops by
      and invites me to bring it out to Westcott Bay where the sculpture park is
      getting ready for its 2nd exhibition and she needs big works. OK.

       Two years it stands in a lovely location up the hill, in front of a big
      fir tree, looking out over the little valley, getting good exposure and
      some loving comments from visitors. Nothing.

       I had resigned myself to letting it just stay there forever, I didn’t
      have the energy nor the money to bring it home, and was seriously
      considering giving up my sculpture career altogether. One beautiful
      September day Kay calls, gives me a name and a phone number, says call him
      right now. Jerry, a music producer from Hollywood, has a summer estate on
      San Juan Island, he and his wife Ann had just come from a patrons party at
      the sculpture park, where they fell in love with SLOW DANCE.

       Hello Mr. Moss, I be the carver yes sir, its for sale, I bring it right
      over to you. Next week, the day before they fly home to Beverly Hills, we
      set it up in front of a beautiful pond, looking down at their house and
      the water, and it was truly magical. This was the home it was meant for.
      WOW!

       I get a check, the biggest paycheck I’ve ever had, go my merry way home.
      The following week I offer to give Kay a little sculpture for her faith
      and kindness, anything she wants, and she picks out my latest SEEKER, a
      small one. A female one, made of Carrara marble given me by M J, another
      friend and mentor.
 Take the check home, pay some bills, there’s money left. Maralyne says
      lets go looking for new galleries, maybe you can buy some new stone and
      make some new sculptures.

       We walk into Blue Horse gallery and meet Wade, such a sweet man he says
      we’re going to France in the spring, you want a go? Money in pocket says
      yes!

      Now the next spring we actually go to France with Wade and 19 new friends,
      what happens next?


Chestnut Chapter: on to France