Sculptures: Limestone & Soapstone

I have been engaged in a sculpture practice for a number of years now. My initial introduction was by instruction with Joska, now deceased, who had a studio called Stone Thoughts at the Old Castlemaine Jail.
This involved working with limestone and some soapstone and the knowledge of the tools and care thereof. Limestone is easy to work with and can be sanded to a smooth surface. There are various grades of limestone. The blocks that were worked here are of Mount Gambier limestone that is usually cream or white and fairly large grained. European, North American and Asian limestones are usually finer grained and more varied in their colours.

A selection of the sculptures executed at this time are shown below:

Griffon

Reclining Woman and

Woman

These pieces are all in limestone, the Woman piece at far right is unfinished in this photograph.

All were created during the 1990s.

Below these are Sorrow, private collection Ken and Carol Morris, Loss

(shown unfinished), private collection Susan Wilks, and Meryl, all in limestone. The final piece is called Nurture and is in the private collection of Trio Arts' Director Maxine McKee.

Soapstone, a soft and variously coloured stone, is fairly easy to work with (if not too flaky) and can be polished to an high shine. Examples of my early pieces are hereunder:

Joska gave me some assistance on the first piece, but I wanted to make a hole through the piece to take the eye through as well as around the piece. The second sculpture is called Love and is probably my favourite of these and remains in my collection. The difference in colour shows, this being a bluer stone whereas Waiting, private collection Ann Mullan, is browner. These stones come from Australia, whereas the black piece She (alternative name Curve) is made from Canadian black Kenora soapstone and is very hard.

The sculpture Hand, Highly Commended, Trentham Art and Craft Show 2009, is made from a green soapstone that is very flaky. The thumb was initially in an outward pointing position, but fell off and had to be realigned.

I am currently working on a piece of translucent white alabaster and am excited to see what it will look like when finished.