The Touch of Stone

The touch of alabaster and the thoughtfulness of a friend launched me on a 25 plus year journey as a sculptor in the late 1990's. Somehow, working with stone reinforced something that I had come to know ~ that touch and embodied experience figure centrally in a healthy life and community. I'd been aware of the power of touch in meeting the spiritual, psychological, and even the physical needs of people in stressful situations since I served as a Chaplain and since studying shiatsu in the 1980s. Creating sculpture acted as an additional voice supporting the power of touch.

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My work in with stone began 1997. By chance, I mentioned to a co-worker that I had always wanted to carve stone. The very next day he brought me two hand sized pieces of alabaster and within four days I completed my first piece. Just that quickly my love for the touch of stone was born. It is a love that offers a way to weave together the various interests and facets that have moved through my life.

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After a move to Santa Barbara in 1998, a paradise for stone carvers and others, I began accumulating additional stone working skills and within a few years became a recognized contributor to the Santa Barbara sculpture community.

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I generally look for understandable entry points that coincide with ideas and personal experiences and I attempt to bring that "real" life into contact with the stone that I have selected. The resulting sculptures become points for reflection, for the outside person to dialogue with the inner self.

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This process was manifested when, with the practice of carving stone, help from mentors, family, friends, teachers, and a fabulous group of local sculptors at the Santa Barbara Sculptors Guild, I was able to finish a Ph.D. in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in September 2007. It’s titled "Extending Fingers Touching Soul: A Heuristic Study of Sculptors and the Liminal Nature of Being Touched by Touching" and focuses on the relationship developed between sculptors and their media through the lens of Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue.

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What has emerged since that time, as my skills continue to develop, are two bodies of work... those that emerge from unconscious/improvisational working of stone and those that are more planned pieces, often reflecting the working of cultural issues on the personal level - where all issues eventually come home.

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One such piece, "Transfigured Wall" began after reading "Up Against the Wall: Re-Imagining the U.S.-Mexico Border," by Mary Watkins and Edward Casey. The idea of our bodies in an environment that is sometimes hostile and the idea of skin as wall, porous and touch-sensitive is at play. All of this is juxtaposed with the literal walls proposed by various governments to keep people out and keep people in.... Stone as a media offers a richness to mirror the richness of the individual lives caught or embraced in this juxtaposition.             – Kerry