Slippery Rock Gazette

by Peter Marcucci

Photos  courtesy ALMA Art Studio

As if the sublime beauty of natural stone wasn’t enough to satisfy the most demanding stone aficionados wanting something unique, the folks at ALMA Art Studio have kicked it up a notch by adding their own unique twist, creating cutting edge, one-off artworks.       

Launched in 2021 by Director Jay Zelingold, ALMA Art Studio is located in the greater New York City area, an ideal location to serve a concentrated market of high-end clientele, design industry professionals and art enthusiasts, explained Zelingold. “From private collectors to commercial projects, this is an opportune market area to be in. We are very fortunate to be here.” 

So now you’re wondering, “What is this cutting-edge art?” ALMA Art Studio takes selected areas of stone slabs, and mixes them with lit images to create endlessly fascinating works of art in all sizes. Zelingold continued, “It is the best of man and nature, and I would describe it as Fine Stone™. That name very deeply encapsulates the work that we do. Stone is beautiful, luxurious, exotic, communicative and chaotic. These are the reasons why people choose natural stone in their home projects. The amount of beauty from the earth itself is incredible and unique, and we take something that is already luxurious, and make it even more unique and exotic by finding the sense and the story and the passion within the chaos. That is the beauty of natural stone, and what we have done is elevated it into Fine Stone™.”   

ALMA Art Studio also markets nationally to both commercial venues and residential; however, a worldwide expansion is in their future, said Zelingold. “In terms of sourcing, collaboration, and our clients, we are a relatively new company, and we can’t just hit the ground and explode all over the world. You’ve got to start somewhere. So, yes, our focus right now is east coast and west coast U.S., and as opportunities present themselves, we will expand into other territories.”

The artwork  Bénédiction is displayed on a Brèche de Vendôme marble slab, shown here installed at Salt Steakhouse – detail at right.

The Bright Imagination of a Child

According to Zelingold, the name ALMA comes from an ancient Aramaic word meaning ‘The World’ while also being used as an acronym for Accentual Light Mapping Art, an acronym of the technique to accentuate the story hidden in the stone. However, Fine Stone™ is not the brain child of Zelingold, but a decades-old idea from the imagination of a ten-year-old named Arin, recalled Zelingold. “There was a gentleman I was working with years ago, who told me about this vision that he had as a child. He would see stories in stone, and everyone thought he was nuts, because it was hard to pick out, and he might come across as a little bit nerdy. But when he showed me an example of what he was talking about, I jumped at this concept and said, ‘The world needs to be told about this. This is transformative, and I must be involved in this.’  You can’t just keep this idea in your brain. We gotta get this out there!”

Then Arin, who now goes by the pseudonym Arin Jéda, collaborated for a few years with Zelingold to create a process, and after viewing hundreds of slabs during 2017, one was found suitable, and the first Fine Stone™ named Pompeii was created to showcase Fine Stone™ to a world audience in 2018.

The Inspiration Behind Accentual Light Mapping Art

“A lot of things in the world get compounded,” said Zelingold, and he explained it this way. “Let’s say that Whitney Houston is going to sing this beautiful song, and she has these beautiful lyrics, too. Houston’s voice is a ten and the lyrics are a ten, but that combination is not now simply a twenty. It is a hundred, because it is compounded. Another example is that a square, when turned into a cube is now compounded. 

“Understanding this, when you take a slab of stone, the veining being beautiful but chaotic, and combine it with an overlaid, non-chaotic story image created using light, the two combined don’t just double the viewing experience. The two compound to enhance the experience to create a transcendental (super-visual) experience.  Those two together are so much more elevated than each one individually. You find the story and the sense within the chaos, and it becomes compounded. And not only that! When you introduce light, which is both metaphysical and technology, and you apply that to natural stone to create the art, it is also bringing in metric powers that together create this transcendent product. 

“All of this started from Arin’s natural ability to see patterns that are just hard to see, and the process that we developed together was this idea of expanding it to a whole other place beyond just, ‘Hey, that’s cool! There’s a face there!’ But no. We could find a lot of faces in stone, but we are not going to turn them into art, necessarily.

What will turn it into a Fine Stone™ is something that actually has a story, communication and passion.”

Above, left: Trimming the slab of marble chosen for Dissent (above, right and below), being carefully loaded for transport.

Below: Mockup for installation of Stones II at  Kosel Museum, and the prepared slab.

The Workings Behind Accentual Light Mapping Art

Arin’s imagination process called ‘Psycho Visual Layering’ might sound a bit complicated, however, it’s easily explained. There are three phases to the artwork: the discovery, the art creation, and the projection.

There are a lot of man-hours involved, and a process to the discovery phase. The company has developed systems to assist in the selection process, but for the most part, it’s looking at countless high resolution photos of slabs, from all angles. Sometimes virtual reality goggles are used to help facilitate different viewing angles until they find a “story.”

Once a story is found, one of many artists develops the digital image, which will eventually be projected onto the stone. The simplest way to describe this is that the digital image of the finished scene they want to create mimics the art that they found in the stone. 

  This brings us to the last step. After the slab and equipment is installed and precisely aligned, the front projected light containing the digital image to highlight and accentuate the veins that make up the story is then set to a slow fade in and fade out effect. 

“The final product is this gorgeous slab on the wall,” continued Zelingold. “It’s beautiful! But then slowly the light starts fading in just highlighting the story that the artist envisioned, and becoming evident to the viewer. Then, the light fully fades out, but now that your eye has been trained as to where to look, the viewer should be able to see the stone the way the artist sees it. Not as a slab of stone, but as a beautiful canvas of art. I do not exaggerate when I say that when we have a slab that is in a commercial space, in a restaurant, for instance, not all people zone-in on what’s happening, but when they do, you can hear a crowd build.” 

Zelingold added that it’s not about the makeup of the material, such as granite, quartzite or marble. It’s more about the veining in the stone, and the more layers, depth and chaos in the stone, the more potential for there to be a story. ALMA is currently working on four commissioned projects, both commercial and residential.

Above: Looking for a pattern that can be developed into a narrative or story.  Zelingold: “Sometimes virtual reality goggles are used to help facilitate different viewing angles until they find a story.” Below: Mapping Feel Alright in the studio, and the enhanced stone with the image revealed.

Below: Developing an image light overlay.

Below: The Fine Stone™ piece Untitled before and after being light mapped onto a slab. This story of a mother bird feeding her chick over a flowing river shows how the stone itself suggests the image and story.

Closing Comments from Jay Zelingold

“When I reflect on ALMA and try and tap into my emotions and feelings surrounding our work, what arises are concepts like destiny, purity, and apex. While necessary, humanity’s use of natural resources can, at times, also be abused. I believe that while nature is here to serve us, we must also respect, cherish and protect it. Natural stone is but one of nature’s resources whose beauty has always been seen and appreciated through the lens of its utility. Using light to give voice to these Fine Stones is the purity of natural stone at the apex of its destiny as an art form, and we are humbled to be the ambassadors of this art form.”

For more information, visit the website www.almaartstudio.com .