LINTEL FRAGMENT, red slate sculpture ~ carving process*

Hand carving stone is an exacting craft.  Letters for me are sculptures.  In the Roman Alphabet there happen to be 26 of them to choose from - and from the time of the Romans and before, people have been experimenting, manipulating, and looking for new ways to use these forms.

At their most basic, letters are just lines and strokes.  Sometimes very purposeful, other times they almost seem like a happy accident.  It is the combination of this "purpose" and immediacy that keeps letters interesting. For me this sculpture is about those forms and strokes that are used to create letters. I find these forms in themselves - the building blocks of letters - endlessly fascinating.

The happy accident and the meticulous and disciplined line, they are both part of the composition.

The line I drew yesterday - is not the line I draw today.

I knew the basic design I wanted for this piece - but the details of the planes overlapping - and how each form would merge with the edge of the stone - those were all worked out during the carving.  I wanted the carving to highlight those boundaries between planes - and give you the feeling that while these forms may all "belong" together - there is a spontaneity to their organization and a living playfulness in their crush.  

      Adam Paul Heller, August 2012

 *Commission by Linda Groenendyk, Art collector & Philanthropist

Carving a place for the design.

Honing the surface with a wet stone.

The stone with the drawing transferred - ready to carve.

Carving...

Detail of the design coming to life.

~

The finished carving after honing the raised forms.

Detail, before painting.

After painting ~ detail.

~

Detail of forms meeting the natural cleft surface of the stone.

The finished stone.

Alphabetica, Adamica Romani - the finished stone.

I usually make a point of including at least a couple of process
photos with every piece - to explain a bit more about how what
you are seeing came to be.  For those who are new to this blog
the letters for this alphabet are not copied from a computer font
or from a type face.  They are drawn by hand - and then carved
by hand - with a mallet and chisel.  The letter forms are the result
of my immersion in drawing and carving letters for the past 14years.
  Traditional Roman letter have a timeless lure - and a timeless
strength.  The have captured me - somewhat against my will,
and I come back to them again and again, with new ideas - and
new ways of seeing - knowing they have so much to teach - and me,
so much to learn!

A detail of the raw stone (slate) and the carved letters before painting.

The finished letters, oil paints.

detail...

detail...

Roman Letters, Really?

  Ok, in writing the above and posting the photos, I realize that for those of you not involved with calligraphy or typography - talking about beautiful letters, and especially Roman Capitals, which we all learned by age 7, may seem a little boring.  Odd though it may be - they (letters) are everywhere.  They are the foundation for everything we communicate in writing, whether it is a text message or an ancient manuscript.  I often take letters for granted, they are deceivingly simple marks.  Yet these 26 characters are used to affirm the tenets of democracy - religion - your favorite book (or screenplay?) and the reservation for your eye doctor appointment.  I would venture to say they are in essence - a pillar of our culture, without which - much of what we take for granted could not exist or be built upon.

  But of course, as an artist - for the moment - the above piece, is not so much a direct celebration of their function.  I see it as more of a family gathering, carved in stone.  It is a chance for some of the more shy and eccentric characters to socialize with the more outgoing vowel types.  Most especially, it is also a chance for me (and hopefully you) to just enjoy them all - for the beautiful characters they are. 

Green Man study

Original sketch idea.

Final drawing.

Final drawing transferred to the stone.

Carving...

Progress...

finished!

detail...

detail...

detail...

Raised letters, process photos...

The original drawing.

The wet surface of the prepared stone ~ after filing and resurfacing to round and soften the edges. 

Transferring the letters

Carving...

Washing and resurfacing once more to prepare the stone for sealing and gilding.

Applying the gold leaf (sometimes things do have to look worse before they look better!)

This finished letters ~ in natural light.

Lettering detail with gold leaf.

Finished stone, Ida McClelland Heller, September 2011 ~ install party, Clintonville, PA

Ida's boys, Gerald and Paul (left to right ~ my uncle and Father)

Digging a hole for a foundation to be poured, we will go 3' deep - to be sure the foundation is below the frost line.

Mixing the cement to be poured for the foundation.

Checking the level of the stone.

Her stone in place.

The other side of the stone shows a poem written by my Father.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Close up of the sparrow.

The front of the stone.

Detail of the hand carved letters.

     The following photo essay shows in brief, the process involved in bringing ideas from a small concept sketch, to full size lettering ready to be carved into a stone.  As I begin to carve the letters I will post more photos.  This stone is a piece of Vermont green slate.   The "back" of the stone, or the the side with the poem, is "honed", which means the surface has been worked and smoothed.  The "front" of the stone has a "riven" or "natural cleft" surface (it will be shown in a later entry) and is a rougher surface.  The natural cleft is the actual face of the slate which has been broken or "cleaved" away from the larger stone slab, or from the mountain itself.

The original sketch.

Re-drawing the final full size letters.

The finished lettering for the poem.

Measuring for the lines to be drawn onto the stone.

Ruling the lines.

Transferring the finished letters to the stone.

Stanza I, transferred onto the stone.

Stanza II

Stanza III

Ready to go!

Preparing to hoist the stone up for easier carving.