Grotto

The quarry that I get the rhyolite from occasionally slices select stones to use in facing fireplaces. I can only imagine how they look, and I shudder every time. I suppose that this was one of the end cuts, because it is the only piece that I have ever gotten with any sort of flat, machined surface to it.

And what a surface. It was already a beautiful Tanguy/Dali landscape and I was afraid to work on it for fear of ruining the image, or at least making it so trite that the mystery would be lost.

After numerous starts and stops over a ten-year period I was able to complete it last summer, the first project in my new studio in Wainscott. Even though I made it I still have a hard time believing that anything like it exists at all.