Re Patrick Healy's Email
It would appear from a lot of what I've seen, that sadly the answer to your
question is yes.
As for the questions is a stone carver an artist and is a sculptor in stone
a stone carver, the answer is maybe. It all depends on your definitions and
the particular person doing the carving.
The debate as I understand it seems to focus on the nature of stone itself
and whether it is posible to treat it as a neutral base on which to work.
There is no such material that is neutral. They all have history and
relationships with the obsever which are ignored at the artist's peril. But
then a lot of artists don't care and it shows in their work. There is
nothing wrong with stone as a material in contemporary works but
contemporary artists tend to chose the materials they use according to what
they want to say or more importantly, what they want to question.
If none of this is of any interest to the stone sculptor/artist and they
just want to carve stone, there is nothing wrong with that, let them get on
with it, pick up their hammers and chip away. It is just that it does not
move art forwards.
Bill Urmenyi
----- Original Message -----
> ...The debate would be:
>
> Is a stone carver an artist?
> Is a sculptor who works in stone a stone carver?
>
> I mean, do people really think that one can carve stone into something
> ineffable and actually not think about what they are doing in the context
> of the world at large?
...........................................
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