Sax Stonecarving Workshop Celebrates 12 Years of Stonecarving Instruction
AS he prepares for the 12th Annual Sax* Stonecarving Workshops, Mark Saxe, resident instructor and director of the workshops reminisces about all the classes that have taken place at Southwest Stoneworks over the past 11 years – about the participants who have come and gone (and many who have returned again and again) and about the talented guest instructors who have taught during the seven-day intensive sessions.
What will this year be like? Saxe says every workshop is distinctive. Although the subject material covered is fairly stable, there are always adjustments made to accommodate the experience and wishes of the specific participants. Some years the emphasis is on figurative work, and in other years the emphasis is on the abstract. Resident and guest instructors are chosen based on their ability to address the two approaches well.
The goal over the years has been to bring together world-class carvers and sculptors with those who wish to learn both the basic and advanced techniques necessary to complete a carving or sculpture.The workshops are kept small to assure that everyone gets as much help as they need. Instruction is ongoing, every day all day, for the entire duration of the workshop. There is plenty of time for camaraderie and the sharing of knowledge. Conversations, both formal and informal, about techniques and aesthetic considerations are integral to the daily flow of information.
Morning coffee and sweets get everybody into high gear. Lunches, lovingly prepared by family and staff, get rave reviews every year (and some participants call it the “all you can eat stonecarving workshop”). On a serious note, the sharing of a meal every day does impact the workshop atmosphere clearly in a positive way.
The subjects covered in detail during the seven-day workshop are:
1. Stone selection / geology
2. Use and care of tools
3. Squaring up a block
4. Layout
5. Measuring techniques using compass, calipers, and a pointing machine
6. Form development and aesthetic considerations
7. Lettering
8. Texturing
9. Mounting and pinning
10. Splitting
11. Rigging
12. Polishing
Slide presentations and videos are shown as well. Beginners and professionals, some of whom are involved in other aspects of the stone industry, come to learn and partake of the voluminous information, leaving with a greater appreciation of what it takes to create a carving or inscribe an epitaph.
Guest instructors this year are Nick Fairplay, Frank Haufe, and Kazutaka Uchida. They each bring their special talents to the class.
Nicholas Fairplay, the guest instructor returning for the fifth year to teach Session One (June 11-17, 2012) has been carving stone for almost 40 years. He started his career at the age of 16 as an apprentice stonecarver at Chichester Cathedral in England. He graduated from the City and Guilds of London Art College and went on scholarship to Rome to study Renaissance and Baroque sculpture.
He was the lead stonecarver at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, before establishing his current business, Fairplay Stonecarvers in Oberlin, Ohio. Visiting his website (www.fairplaystonecarvers.com) will give readers an idea of the breadth of his knowledge and talent. Nick is known for his teaching skills, humor, patience, and encyclopedic knowledge of everything to do with stonecarving.
The guest instructors for Session Two (August 13-19, 2012) are Frank Haufe from Germany, and Kazutaka Uchida, from Japan. Frank was born and raised in Dresden and started carving in 1971. He worked for Eduard Schnell Company as a stonecarver and stonecarving instructor for 19 years, and was the stonecarving technician at the world-famous Wunsiedel Technical College in Bavaria for three years before being recruited by Quarra Stone in Madison, Wisconsin as their master resident stonecarver and mentor to the approximately 20 stonecarvers that work for Quarra. (For more information on Frank Haufe’s carving artistry, see the Slippery Rock cover article on Quarra Stone from September 2010 in our achives ).
Frank has worked on the state capitol building in Albany, New York and the Yale University Library, and is currently finishing up a five-year project at the state capitol building in Kansas. During his career, he has worked on some of Europe’s most famous projects.
In addition to his considerable carving skills, Frank has considerable engineering talents and unbridled enthusiasm to share with participants.Kazutaka Uchida from Tokyo, Japan returns as guest instructor for the ninth year. His presence attracts carvers and sculptors from around the world drawn by his unique visual language.
His techniques for working stone are always a high point in the workshop, some being specific to Japanese stone sculpture traditions.
Uchida’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the Kyoto Museum of Art, and the Toyota Museum of Modern Art. Some consider Uchida a direct descendant of the Brancusi / Noguchi lineage. Director Mark Saxe says, “To spend time with Uchida is a great honor for students and staff alike.”Mark Saxe, the director of the workshops, has been working in stone for 38 years. After receiving his MFA, he became a stonemason’s apprentice in order to understand stonework from a basic vantage point: stone upon stone, with little or no intervention. That background influences his sculpture to this day.
He learned his skills through years of hard work, watching and working with great mentors and making many mistakes. He says, after over 35 years of owning and operating his own stone business, “There are still so many avenues to explore.”Saxe invites students of all levels of experience to the workshop. It is through shared knowledge, camaraderie, and common purpose that the workshop has gained a loyal following, with many of the participants returning year after year.
For more information about the workshops, visit www.saxstonecarving.com or call Mark Saxe at 505-579-9179.
*The workshops are named after the Latin term sax meaning stone.