Post #319761 by Tamapoutini on Thu, Jul 19, 2007 2:11 AM

On 2007-07-17 07:59, prairie jade wrote:
...i spent 40 years so far making jewelry, and have shown over 2000 of my paintings. i've collected rocks for over 50 years. since i live in limestone i've collected, stacked and carved over 2 million pounds-organized into gardens waterfalls and ponds. i need to photograph my feeble attempts at hard stone carving - but here are some pics of my limestone carvings

Man, I thought that whale skull was a limestone carving for a moment; I bet there'd be a few tikis in those lower jaws... :o

You've got quite a history with stones all right. They all have their uses/attributes/limitations, etc. Ive done a little limestone carving; maybe a dozen pieces. The commonly used limestone here is named after its place of origin 'Oamaru' stone', but is pretty crumbly/unstable. We have another occurance of a more compact type in Mt Somers but Ive never tried it - much harder and seems to take a semi-polish. Some of the slabs you show seems very compact and workable, and allow quite fine detail. Nice.

Im a big fan of Meso-American art and also like the altered riverstone - there's something really special about working with a natural stone and doing your thing whilst deliberately retaining something of the original form. The Chinese jade boulder carvings are clever examples of this.

40years jewellery making & 2000 paintings?? Thats pretty impressive - but how many Tikis?? Thats what we go on around here.. :lol: :wink:

Actually I see a couple; your friend seems very happy with her one!heehee

TTT :)