Some of my own thoughts after 20 years of giving stone sculpting courses
Why 4 days and not 2?
2 days are only enough for a small trial. To experience your own potential and your own creative resources needs time. To take time to sculpt stone means changing your own emotional situation. (Can I do it? Wow this is great! What should I do? What can I sculpt? Can I finish this? I made that??!!) During this process you give your own creativity and individuality room to grow, whether it’s quiet or loud, spectacular or appears quietly or even all of these. One doesn’t have to sculpt stone for long. In the shortest of time you will start to experience its potential, its purpose and spectacular reflective qualities (that can also apply to your own lifestyle).
Why out in the open air and not inside?
Nature works with us. The stone sounds different. The air doesn’t get filled with dust. Your body relaxes out in the fresh air with the soft grass under your feet. The area in which the course takes place is well protected but also has a view of the mountains towards south, fields towards the north and east and a forest to the west. Your eyes sweeping between your stone and natural surroundings there are no walls blocking your view. One feels free and can tune in better to oneself.
Why soft stone and not marble?
This has to do with expressing and discovering. You can just let things develop in a way that comes naturally with your own creative potential and every one of us has that within us. Stones such as marble don’t have these qualities to be able to express properly in this way. For example the same work we do would take 5 times as long to do in marble as it does to do in the stone we use.
Why 100 kg and not 40 kg?
An opponent that is strong, that can take on a lot, that doesn’t fall apart. One you don’t have to respect but, because of its mass you can just feel and sense it. Whilst at the same time it is malleable and can be quickly chiselled and sculpted.
AND. The opponent can be reduced to just a few kg using a simple method.
Density – Energy – Your own life – Connecting at the same level
Why a block and not an erratic boulder?
A block of stone is neutral and doesn’t give you as much “inspiration” as an erratic boulder.
In an erratic boulder you may already be able to see a form or figure of some kind before you even start work on it. The block of stone enables the participants to be more creative within ones selves.
It really is amazing how quickly every one become creative. It is as if the participants are just waiting for this opportunity to express themselves. No school, no hierarchy of the able, but your own experience, authentic strong expressions, your own resources and your own pleasure of achievement. Your own strength and spontaneity, doubts and fears, excelling yourself and having fun, joking around and being a bit crazy. Your own peace and quiet and your own regard for the material, just your own ideas and lots of other things too. It is nothing you can be taught or educated on. But it is all possible due to a special combination with people, material and atmosphere.
This process teaches you self-confident and enables you to express yourself. That is, so to say, a positive side effect of your own creativity. An experience that you can think back to with your next stone, your next problem or the next time someone tries to interfere or talk you into something. Having the knowledge to know that your own inner-self has to ability to produce a “masterpiece” or come up with a solution all by its self, if only you allow it to. During the 4 day course with a 100 kg block of stone you have learnt that you can trust your inner self.