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!
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