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 For
me, the soapstone carving was an integral part of a larger transformation
in my life that happened in the latter half of 1986. I am going to assume
you know what “the born-again” experience is all about, and
not go into detail about it here. This web site is about my stone carving,
not my religious testimony, so I want to try to stay on topic. If you
would like to hear my testimony, I’d be glad to share it with you
privately, but not here.
I learned this art by watching another carver for 7 years. I was 28 when
I met Roger Cox in New Westminster, BC in 1979, and was powerfully impressed
by his artistic talent. We became close friends, and I would talk with
him while he carved. Having failed art in school, (two different schools;
two different teachers,) and having never received a mark higher than
a C in art, I was absolutely convinced I had no talent whatsoever, but
I really enjoyed watching, and having Roger explain to me why he was doing
the things he did in the order he did them. He taught me the thinking
process.
I don’t know how many times over the course of those seven years
I tried to convince Roger to carve a dinosaur, but it was a lot, and he
never did do one. I knew I couldn’t, but one day I asked him to
let me borrow his tools, and a piece of stone. I carved a shark, which
I planned to give as a wedding gift for an old friend I had just found
out was getting married. Looking back now, it wasn’t especially
good. Roger called it, “primitive” which really stuck in my
craw. It’s a stone carving; of course it’s primitive! The
noteworthy thing about it was that you could sit it on a flat surface,
tap its tail, and it would spin without ever moving off the spot. It was
perfectly balanced! I’ve never been able to do that since without
using a lathe to make a symmetrical abstract. Try it yourself; it’s
almost impossible. That was my sign from God, whom I was just beginning
to have a relationship with at that time, that this was something I was
supposed to be doing. Sadly, that carving was almost completely destroyed
in transit by Canada Post. My fault; I wasn’t aware of how to protect
a soapstone carving for shipping back then.
Roger’s reason for not carving a dinosaur was that they wouldn’t
sell. He carved to make the money to feed his family. I was full of enthusiasm,
and in a position where I didn’t need to worry about that; I was
carving for fun, so I carved a few dinosaurs. He was right; they don’t
sell. Whales, dolphins, eagles, owls, wolves, bears, salmon, and a few
other things like gargoyles, those are the subjects that turn into money
quickly. Roger was good enough to connect me with his “patron”
who bought and commissioned carvings from him, but I quickly took a dislike
to the man. He wanted musk oxen from me, and nothing else. He mocked me
openly, and laughed at the thought that I’d ever be as good as the
other carvers in his “stable.” So I left him after only a
couple of months, and started looking for galleries that would take my
carvings on consignment. It was then that I was given another sign to
confirm I was on the right course. The very first piece I carved that
I thought was good enough to put into a gallery was accepted at the first
gallery I offered it to, in Richmond, BC. I told them I wanted $450 for
it and went home. It was a half hour drive. When I got home there was
a message on the phone from the gallery; come back, they’d sold
the carving to the very first person to look at it. The buyer was Colin
Foo, a professional wildlife artist from the Philipines, and he presented
my carving to his daughter as a wedding gift. I was thrilled, and very
strongly encouraged. In no time at all I had carvings in Lake Louise,
Kananaskis, Kelowna, Ucluelet, Richmond, Burnaby, and Port Moody. I still
didn’t have to rely on selling my carvings to survive, so I experimented
more, but it was always those same subjects that were Roger’s staples
that were first to sell, and I found myself doing more and more of those,
especially grey whales, and salmon for the gallery in Ucluelet.
In 1997, after 21 years in British Columbia, I took a job as a long-haul
trucker, and moved back to Ontario, where all my family are. All my wife’s
family are here as well. It took less than 6 months for the job to drive
me crazy. I love to see new places, and didn’t really mind country
music too much, but we never got to stop at those new places, we never
came home, and I got my fill of country music pretty quickly. When my
partner wouldn’t turn it off, and I couldn’t turn it off,
I put my fist through the speakers, and suddenly I had to rely on my carving
for income. Thus, out of necessity, The Livingstone Quarry was born in
October 1997.
When I had a chance to be home, and to work on my art, I soon discovered
that eastern Canada is very different from western Canada when it comes
to stone carving. In the west, almost every gallery has good carvings
for sale. There are a lot of very good carvers in the west, and the galleries
know how to display the work. Here in the east I couldn’t find a
single gallery that offered soapstone carvings. I found only one supplier
of soapstone, and he was charging 50% more for stone that was of inferior
quality to what I had been accustomed to out west. I have since found
a couple of galleries that carry soapstone, and know how to handle it,
but they are rare, and the exception, not the rule. That’s why,
when I started the business I also started the newsletter. The Great Lakes
- Atlantic Stone Carvers’ Association, I hoped, would become an
eastern equivalent of the North West Stone Sculptors’ Association,
- an artisan’s guild. I wanted it to be a place for stone carvers
to share information, to get discounts on tools, and other raw materials,
to educate novices, etc., and generally to bring stone carving up to the
level of acceptance in the art world of the east that it enjoys in the
west. You can’t do all that alone though, and I am still waiting
for some younger, more energetic, enthusiasts to step forward to help
me achieve those goals. In the meantime, I use it as a newsletter to educate
all those who are my customers on a range of topics related to soft stone
sculpting.
One of the main ways I have tried to get the message out there is art
shows. I’ve done a few, and haven’t had much trouble getting
into them because so very few stone carvers do shows. Part of the reason
there are so many carvers in the west, I believe, is because the art galleries
almost all carry stone carvings. People see what you can do, and they
see that it isn’t just the Inuit, and other First Nations people
who carve soapstone. In the east, if you see carvings at all, it is at
the airport, or in the lobby of a five star hotel in a big city, and it
is almost exclusively Inuit. People don’t see the versatility, or
the range of styles, or colours. They don’t know anyone who carves,
what tools they’d need, or where to get the stone. So I started
doing art shows, and educating people.
The problem with stone carvings and art shows is the physical demands
made by the stone. You can pack a lot of paintings in the back of a van,
and they are relatively safe from accidental damage while traveling from
one show to the next. Your booth can be lightweight too. Soapstone is
dense, as well as soft, and easily damaged. It can have flaws in it, being
a natural product, and can be easily broken if bumped. It’s very
heavy, requiring a much more durable display, and it can be really tough
on your vehicle. Setting up, and taking down a display is a daunting task
as well, so you won’t see a lot of carvers doing art shows. I am
committed to following that course though, and have worked out a few solutions,
which I have shared in my newsletter in the past, and will be sharing
again, no doubt, before too long.
I was one of three carvers who approached the organizers of the annual
Rockhound Gemboree in Bancroft, Ontario, after they let us be part of
their show for the first time in the summer of 2001. We each presented
them the same idea, unbeknownst to each other, and so was born the Stone
Carver’s Symposium, which runs concurrently with the lapidary show
and will be going into its fourth season this summer. It’s an art
show exclusively for stone carvers, and is therefore unique. I consider
it my baby, and have attended every year since its inception. I plan to
continue with it for as long as it runs, and I live.
Besides the Gemboree, I am also committed to the local studio tours in
my new home region of the Thousand Islands. It’s a lot easier to
have the viewing public come to me than to bring my work to them! Although
it is difficult to set up outdoors under the trees, I have been a fixture
at the Friends of Bon Echo wildlife art show and sale for the last five
years or so, and would like to continue with that show too. I love the
atmosphere there. I also enjoy showing annually at the Gemstorm in the
Portsmouth Olympic Harbour facility, in Kingston every October. I hope
I will find some other shows in eastern Ontario, or near enough to be
practical, that I can schedule in.
I am also hoping to find some good galleries I can display in. My recent
move has made it impractical to stay with some of the galleries I was
showing in previously. I think it is important, if you don’t have
an agent, to be able to visit the gallery periodically, so it has to be
within a reasonable radius of home. So far, I have Studio 737, in Tweed,
and Our House, in Bancroft, who carry my work, and whom I plan to remain
with. For a very short time I had an agent, but it is like a marriage;
your agent has to believe in you, and be enthusiastic about you, because
they are really a traveling salesman, and you are their product. I’d
be open to talk to another potential agent. It’s like the newsletter;
I realize there is only so much I can do on my own; I need allies if I
am going to take this any further.
Meanwhile, my work continues to evolve. I still carve a lot of fish and
birds because those are what sell for me. When I first started out I did
small pieces, but they got stolen, so I switched to bigger pieces no normal
person could easily carry away. The prices were too high for most folks
though, so they haven’t sold all that well, and they take a lot
of time. I’m going back to the smaller pieces more these days, and
looking for better ways to protect them. I still enjoy doing the odd “Oh
Wow” monsterous masterpiece, but I’m not looking to sell those
anymore. They are attention-getters. My income and satisfaction comes
from selling the raw stone, teaching, and producing carvings that are
unlike anyone else’s. I’m going back to my dinosaurs! I am
a much better carver now, so maybe they will sell now. There’s really
only one way to find out. After all, with fine art, as with everything
else in life, quality boils down to why you do it: are you creating to
sell, and earn your living? Or, are you doing it for the joy of doing
it, and trusting God to provide for your needs?
Enjoy and thanks for visiting
The Livingstone Quarry!
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