THE GUARDIAN

The piece The Guardian was fashioned from a single piece of Pyrophyllite, (commonly called Wonder stone by most sculptors and carvers). The stone is composed of aluminum hydroxide. Typically associated minerals include: kyanite, andalusite, topaz, mica, and quartz. The stone used for this sculpture is red “Wonder stone”, with green areas of stone mixed in. This stone was bought from a sculptor in St Albert Alberta.  I do not know where it was quarried.

An average of two hours a day was spent on the piece, for a rough total of three hundred and sixty hours. There were no power tools used to create this sculpture; all work was done by hand. The rough blocking or shaping of the piece took approximately one hundred and thirty, to one hundred and forty hours. This was done with small handsaws and metal rasps. The next step, refining the sculpture to its desired look before polishing, was close to 100 hours. To complete this stage of the work I used metal files and rasps, as well as 40 grit sand paper on various sanding blocks. This process took approximately one hundred and twenty hours. There are no sealers or waxes on the sculpture. The polished areas are pure stone. Some areas of the sculpture were left in rough stone; this is a trademark of the sculptor. I leave the rough areas to keep the work connected to its original form.