Ready for final finishing

Here are the last two photos before I wet-sand this piece and then mount it on a concrete base (which I have yet to saw and drill). I expect to finish it sometime tomorrow, and will post some shots of the completed piece.

Side B shows its face

A few days ago, I thought that this side of the piece was going to be a real problem, so imagine my delight at having it coming along so smoothly. The radial theme I envisioned is working out well, although the finishing stage is going to really take some time with all those edges. However, it's all in the service of taking the best advantage of the layer of glass-like material over the
underlying orange stone. I am now thinking it's a layer of silica, but it seems to carve and finish very well. It could also be just a layer of alabaster without any impurities. I've never seen this before and am anxious to get it finished.

Day Seven . . .

Yesterday I figured out what to do about the dilemma presented by this side of the stone (see previous post). Today, I really went to town on it, and I have to say that I'm pleased with the result so far. The radial theme is emerging nicely and once I reassert the circular motif, it should integrate with the other side quite well - something that seemed pretty elusive as recently as a few days ago.

An important step forward

There's a good reason why there haven't been any photos of the other side of this piece shown here on this blog - it was, until today, just the natural rock as it was when it was quarried. The reason? When I first took a good look at this stone, my spirits sank a bit when I looked at one side of it. It has an undulating surface with about 1/4" of a clear, near glass-like stone over the orange alabaster that makes up the rest of the stone.

So, this was my dilemma: I wanted to keep as much of the clear layer as possible, knowing how beautiful it looks when finished (the other half of this stone had a small patch of clear), but how to do that without having it dictate the form of that side? I didn't want to compromise the character of the piece too much - I need to create coherent objects that have unity side to side.

Only today did it occur to me how to achieve those twin goals; I'll create a radial motif on that side, displaying different levels that will maintain the undulating character in a mechanical way consistent with both the other side of the stone and also with my overall aesthetic. This scheme has the added benefit that it will produce lots of places where the surface is, either gradually or abruptly, in transit from transparent to translucent orange stone. I got rained out today, but this is where this piece gets exciting!

In vague territory . . .

I'm working on day 4 of this piece and the title of this post is pretty accurate. This part of the process, when I'm weighing what I want to do with/to the stone and the stone is making it known what it will allow, is the most vague and mentally challenging part of the whole process. Today I had to decide what if anything will remain of the top point (see photo). The rest of it may eventually go, but it felt too drastic - once it's gone, it's gone - to just lop the whole thing off. I'm pretty sure that this will be the final mounting position. The other side, if my plan works out, will be the big surprise - check back soon!