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Stone Carving
Wednesday, 25th August 2010 22:53 PM
I love work I could watch it any time! I suppose this only applies to watching skilled maunual work, I think I would not enthuse much about watching an accountant at work. A friend of mine worked as a town planner for about thirty years then started to train part time as a stone mason and now is like a dog with two tails as he is now working full time as a stone mason. He recently participated in the York Minster Stone Carving Fetsival and we went along to give moral support. I spent a fascinating afternoon with the seventy or so stone carvers working by the minster.
There is some common ground between this and cabinet making, the importance of sharp tools, datum points and accurate marking out are common through a number of construction crafts. The striking thing about the stone carving was how appartently easily, under skilled hands, the stone can be cut. Many of the workers talked about the properties of the different stones available at the festival, some stone cuts easily when detailing but was difficult to make larger cuts in, other stone responded well to strong blows from the mallet but was brittle when working detail. This is reminiscent of the varying qualities of timber.
There is something fascinating about watching a skilled craft's person at work. The ease and economy of movement, the response to the medium and the transfer of mind to hand all make it a uniquely human activity. In the very skilled there is almost an unconscious revelling in or celebration of their understanding and control of the medium
This is not just evident in the guild crafts. A couple of years ago the road was dug up outside my workshop, for some reason a digger could not be used, so much of the digging and shovelling was done by hand. I found it fascinating to watch the finesse and delicacy with which the Irish contractors manipulated their shovels. They exhibited just the same economy of movement and response to the medium as the stone carvers.
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