Slippery Rock Gazette

Mark Saxe 

Special Contributor

Photos Courtesy John T. Denne, Morgan Dummit, Patrick Halloran, and Jessi Cole Eaton 

This Spring, the Sax Stone Carving Workshop in northern New Mexico is celebrating 20 years of training and encouraging stone carvers.

Above, left: Jessi Cole carves with a pneumatic tool on her free-form sculpture at the 2019 Sax Stone Work Above, right: Patrick Halloran working on his angel, an advanced project that extended over the course of several classes.

Above: Morgan Dummitt uses the pointing machine during the 2018 workshop.

Mark Saxe and Petro Hul will demonstrate chiseled letter carving techniques at the first 2020 Stone Workshop session. Inset: Mark Saxe

As my wife/partner in this endeavor and I sit at the dinner table planning this year’s classes, we have also been talking about the instructors and participants we have come to know over these twenty years. Many have become good friends and loyal supporters of the workshop, a family of sorts.  Some participants have even gone on to have careers in the stone trades as carvers, stonemasons, or sculptors.

A landmark moment such as this inevitably also brings to mind the question of how long things last.  Is twenty years a long time?  It depends on what you compare it to. For some things, like the age of the earth (4 billion) or the duration of the pyramids (25 centuries), 20 years is a mere grain of sand. Even the Arctic whale lives to be 200, while the bristlecone pine may thrive for an unthinkable 5,000 years. But then again, the average electric dryer lasts a measly 12 years, which is, coincidentally, about the life span of a goat.  A freezer may continue working efficiently for a decade and a half, and a gas range barely outlasts a high school graduate. 

We hope, of course, that what we have created will outlast us, and that young, dedicated carvers will see fit to carry the program into the future. We continue to take it one year at a time, trusting that a momentum has built up that will withstand the test of time and that what we have begun will continue to educate and reveal the beauty and worth of stone work, carving, and sculpture.

What makes a workshop successful?  First and foremost, we learn from our instructors.  Over the past 20 years we have been privileged to welcome some of the best stone carvers in the world, including Kazutaka Uchida, Karin Sprague, Patrick Plunkett, Kelly Jamison, Joseph Kincannon, DJ Garrity, Nicholas Fairplay, Gary Haven Smith, Frank Haufe, Fred X. Brownstein, and Matt Auvinen. From them, the learning branches out, not unlike the roots of that bristlecone pine.  Dedicated staff, an organized curriculum, good equipment, an inspiring setting in which to work, quality stone, the experience of being in a professional and active stone carving studio, delicious food – all of these factors contribute to a meaningful experience. 

We have found that 18 students is our optimum class size, giving the class a life of its own while keeping it small enough for each student to receive personal attention and interaction. By the end of the seven-day experience, everyone knows one another by name and by the project they are working on, and many connect as friends beyond the class, sharing information and experience. We learn from each other.  

Everyone brings to the workshop their special talents, and we make sure that everyone has a chance to share them. Our students include doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers, architects, geologists, hydrologists, rocket scientists, artists, plumbers, stonemasons, archeologists, flight attendants, photographers, jewelers, managers, students, city planners, historians, designers, and the list goes on.  It is amazing to see how much knowledge is brought to bear during the class.

So needless to say, over the years, we have learned a few things! We know, just as one example, to prepare two zones, a quiet zone and a dusty, noisy zone, allowing for the comfortable separation of those who want to carve with hand tools from those who want to use power tools. Every year, we have taken and followed suggestions from our staff and students to make the classes better and better, not unlike stacking stone upon stone.

At the core of what we offer is the understanding that everyone who comes has a dream, and that it is our job to help them realize that dream by providing all of the information and guidance we can in a seven-day span.  This includes teaching safety considerations, then helping each student choose the right stone and the right tools, teaching them how to care for and use those tools, how to plan, rough out, split, carve, texture, polish. We also have lessons in pneumatic and electric tools, rigging, lettering, gold leafing, and so on. Some of our repeat students have gained such proficiency as to lead some of these demonstrations themselves.

Adding to the overall experience is an extensive library of books on stone and sculpture.

As in previous workshops, an ongoing series of videos will explore some of the greatest carvers and their work.

Fresh homemade daily lunches offer vegans, vegetarians, gluten free, and omnivores a chance to recharge and relax al fresco around large communal tables. A safe, encouraging atmosphere for students of all backgrounds and levels of experience contributes to a healthy learning environment.

This year, the Stone Workshop will offer three sessions:  

Session One (May 23-25, 2020) Letter Carving

Instructors will be Mark Saxe and Petro Hul. The class will be a comprehensive introduction to carving letters in stone using hammer and chisel, a tradition dating back thousands of years.

Session Two (July 23-31, 2020) with National Sculpture Society Fellow, Fred X. Brownstein “Traditional and Contemporary”

Fred trained and worked in Italy for 16 years, learning the traditional skills of stone carving as passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years. Fred shares his immense knowledge, over 40 years of experience, and techniques with great generosity of spirit and a true desire to see students develop a strong foundation in carving.  This class is a rare opportunity to work with an artist trained in the classic Italian tradition.

Session Three (August 17-23, 2020) “The Basics and Beyond”

This class will be taught by our staff instructors, who have a combined 125 years of experience. Petro, Hul, Schuyler Blanchard, Brian Barreto and Mark Saxe  will share their knowledge and expertise to help students achieve their goals. Participants will learn what is necessary to create a carving in stone. Topics include geology, safety, plug and feather splitting, proper use and care of tools, planning, measuring, common mistakes and how to learn from them, aesthetic considerations, carving, cutting, polishing, texturing, lettering, gold leafing, rigging, and other topics as the need arises.

Dixon is a beautiful mountain town in northern New Mexico, situated on the confluence of the Rio Embudo and the Rio Grande, about one hour north of Santa Fe and thirty minutes south of Taos, two world class art destinations. The geology of the area, nestled between immense basalt and granite formations and towering sandstone chimneys, is unforgettable. Dixon, New Mexico itself is a small art colony with two wineries, an award-winning independent library, a local craft brewery, restaurant, and cooperative grocery store with a weekly farmers market.  

We welcome everyone to join us in celebrating our twentieth season, and we hope that this is just the beginning of another decade of profound workshop experiences.

Several of the main Sax Workshop guest instructors spent many years working at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, and growing interest has led to a new project extensively documenting the stonework, stone carvings, and carvers of the cathedral, which will become available at www.DivineStone.org in the coming weeks, and also featured in an upcoming edition of the Slippery Rock Gazette.