Taking a Break to Learn Another Craft

And now for something completely different.

I’ve stepped away from stone carving for a little while.

Partly, it’s to make sure I don’t compete with myself creatively. Sometimes the best thing an artist can do is forget what they know for a while, buy the tools they’ve always wanted, learn something completely different, and return with fresh eyes. That’s where I find myself.

This past week was… potty training week.

Our two-and-a-half-year-old daughter has been learning one of life’s great milestones, and my wife and I have spent more time encouraging someone over a toilet than I ever imagined possible. I’ll spare you the details.

Being home has its own challenges. Cabin fever has a way of convincing me I should tackle three projects at once. Instead, I’m learning patience. I’ve been spending an hour or two each day making quiet progress on a few different things.

One is the final stages of a new Veritas Composite sculpture.

Another is a large Great Egret—slightly larger than life, with a body measuring nearly three and a half feet before the legs are even attached. I’ve reached out to an old blacksmith instructor to help fabricate the steel legs and base. It wasn’t until I stood back and looked at the body that I realized just how ambitious this sculpture had become. Sometimes a project quietly grows into something much bigger than you expected.

The third project, however, has completely captured me.

It’s a 17-foot cedar-canvas canoe that I believe is a Chestnut Prospector, though there is no certain way to confirm it. What I do know is that its craftsmanship is exceptional. Details like the single-piece inwales, outwales, and keel reveal a level of work that is becoming increasingly rare.

The more I study it, the more I feel responsible for restoring it properly.

I bought one of the most comprehensive books I could find on cedar-canvas canoe restoration. At first I thought I was simply removing the old canvas, restoring the wood, and installing new canvas. I quickly discovered that every one of those steps branches into dozens more. There are countless small decisions that determine whether the canoe will last another few years—or another generation.

It has been humbling.

I won’t mention how much I’ve spent gathering supplies.

But I still remember the first time I slid the canoe into the water after buying it for $750 from a seller on Kijiji. He hadn’t cared for it the way he claimed, but he was honest about one important thing: before he owned it, it had spent decades hanging safely in the rafters of his aunt’s barn. Because of that, it survived in remarkably good condition compared with most cedar-canvas canoes of its age.

The first paddle made me smile.

Not because it was perfect, but because I could already see what it could become.

Working on this canoe has become my break from stone carving, but it has also reminded me why I love making things in the first place. I’m learning another person’s craft. I’m studying the decisions made by builders long before I was born, trying to understand why each piece was shaped the way it was.

It also connects me to Canada’s history. Long before cedar-canvas canoes, voyageurs travelled incredible distances in enormous birchbark canoes held together with spruce roots, bark, and pine pitch. The cedar-canvas canoe became the evolution of that tradition—a practical, durable craft built for hard travel and generations of use.

Mine is only seventeen feet long, small enough that I can load and paddle it alone. It reminds me of the sixteen-foot plastic canoe my parents owned when I was younger. I spent many days on the water in that canoe, and restoring this one feels like reconnecting with a part of myself I hadn’t realized I missed.

The funny thing is that none of this feels very different from stone carving.

Both are old crafts.

Both ask for patience over speed.

Both reward careful hands more than hurried ones.

We live in a time that celebrates instant results, but the things that endure still ask for time. Coffee beans are still grown, picked, roasted, and prepared with care. Farmers may harvest with machinery now, but that simply shifts the craftsmanship into designing, building, and maintaining the equipment that makes the harvest possible.

The work never truly leaves our hands.

Whether we’re carving stone, restoring a canoe, growing food, or building something entirely different, our feet are still planted in the same earth as those who came before us.

So here’s to the craft—whatever yours may be.

May you follow it farther than you ever imagined it could take you.

And when the work asks for patience, give it freely.

One careful step at a time, until the path has finished telling you where it was leading all along.

The Artist Beneath the Art

There is something largely unrecognized in the art world—something I scarcely understood until recently. Now it resounds clearly in my heart and mind, as though I have heard it in a way that cannot be unheard.

As artists, we often hide behind our work. We remain unseen, hoping that our worth will somehow be recognized through the beauty of what we produce. We hope the work will prove that we are valuable. That we are worth something. That we are worthy of being exchanged for something of equal or greater value.

It is a strange way to live.

In some ways, it reminds me of the soldier whose value is only fully recognized after death—by family, by country, by the people who finally gather around the meaning of what has been lost. The thought is terrifying. And yet, for a small mind, the hope of immortality can seem like the only way to make sense of existence.

Perhaps the problem is obvious on the surface. Look at my art. My own sense of self-worth is poor, so I need you to support my illusion that I am worth something, even though some deeper part of me insists that I am not.

But perhaps there is another layer beneath that.

The art itself can become part of the illusion—a product created not only from inspiration, but from our attempts to cover, disguise, or compensate for our own psychological wounds. The work becomes a façade. We hide behind beauty.

The obvious answer, then, would be to turn this around.

But how?

The product in art is often assigned a monetary value. Yet it is clear that this value has little to do with the actual time, talent, or effort invested in creating it. A work can take months to complete and be worth very little. Another can be created in minutes and be worth a fortune.

So what is it that is actually being valued?

I have always been fascinated by the story of Salvador Dalí saying that he wanted to be a professional clown. The interviewer was apparently shocked by the statement, but Dalí remained confident and entirely unashamed. Then he clarified what he meant: what he had to offer the world was the personality of Dalí.

No more.

That idea has stayed with me.

We often replace ourselves with our art. We try to make the work speak for us because we are unwilling—or perhaps afraid—to speak for ourselves. We worry that to put our own personality forward is to expose our flaws.

But we are exposed anyway.

Every day.

The artist is present in the work whether they wish to be or not. The artist’s fears, obsessions, desires, wounds, humour, arrogance, humility, and strange little ways of seeing the world all find their way into the work. We can cover ourselves with layers of paint, stone, bronze, polish, branding, and carefully chosen words, but there is still something of us beneath it all.

People see more than we think they do.

And perhaps that is where the true value of the artist begins.

Regardless of whether you believe that confidence has anything to do with success, there is one thing I feel increasingly certain of. If I had no more time to explain this clearly and had to leave it as a footnote to everything else I have written, I would want this to ring as clearly and as loudly as possible:

Art is first about people. The product means very little without the person behind it.

Art is often sold through a story.

And every one of us has a story.

That story is our character. It is the strange collection of experiences, failures, beliefs, wounds, triumphs, contradictions, and dreams that make us who we are. It is always there. It is always worth telling.

So keep making the art.

Keep producing.

Keep carving, painting, drawing, building, writing, and creating.

But remember that people often see you before they see the work.

And if I have learned anything about people over the years, it is that they are far better at seeing through us than the most skilled psychic. They can see through the magic and the makeup. They can see through the carefully constructed image. They see the person beneath it all.

They see you.

And perhaps they can recognize your worth long before you are capable of recognizing it yourself.

If you can begin to see it too, then something changes.

It becomes easier to do what you love.

To produce art.

To create.

But perhaps the greater task is to place yourself forward alongside your work—and, in doing so, to place other people forward before their art as well.

Because the work may be beautiful.

The work may be valuable.

The work may even outlive us.

But before the art, there was always a person.

And perhaps that person was the real masterpiece all along.

Something Unique

I suppose everyone is looking for something exceptional. Something that has never quite been done before. Something that makes people stop for a moment and wonder how it came into existence.

And I think, perhaps, I have found a little bit of that.

In my studio, I am constantly imagining new ways of getting things done. Stone carving has slowly moulded me into something of a jack-of-a-few-trades. Over the years, I have learned to move between materials, tools, and technologies—sometimes because I want to, and sometimes because the work itself seems to demand it.

Recently, I have been exploring 3D scanning and digital modelling as part of my sculptural process. But the goal is not to abandon the original material. Quite the opposite. The goal is to carry something forward.

A sculpture begins in stone. It is carved, discovered, and brought into being through the removal of material. Then, through a combination of scanning, modelling, and casting, it can pass into another medium entirely. The strange thing is that the result often becomes so transformed that people cannot even recognize the original sculpture within it. And yet, somehow, it is still there.

This is not entirely unlike the process of bronze casting, where the original sculpture is often made from clay or another material before being transformed into bronze. But there is something different about beginning with stone. Stone is not simply a material that can be replaced. It has its own history. Its own weight. Its own ancientness.

So when a sculpture begins in stone and eventually becomes something else, the process becomes a kind of transformation. The original is not destroyed. It becomes something new.

I have begun calling these works Veritas Composite.

Veritas is Latin for “truth,” while composite refers to something made from several different materials. Together, the name seems to describe the process quite well. It is a simpler way of saying: a sculpture that began in stone and has been transformed through a combination of materials and modern techniques.

But perhaps there is something more truthful in the name than that. Because the work is not pretending to be one thing. It is stone. It is bronze-like. It is wood, brass, glass, and the invisible mathematics of digital scanning. It is an original sculpture, and it is also something entirely new.

Perhaps that is what makes it true.

Tracing the Heavens

The first of these works is named, like its predecessor, Tracing the Heavens. The sculpture is mounted with brass dowels running through the work and into a cured piece of red oak. Beneath it, a glass base provides stability while allowing the sculpture to remain visually light.

There is something I enjoy about the meeting of these materials. The stone carries its ancient weight, while the brass and glass seem to lift it into something more contemporary. The red oak gives it a grounding—something warm and earthly.

Stone reaching upward. The heavens above. The earth below. A small meeting of worlds.

Requiem

The second work is called Requiem.

The word means “rest.”

I chose the name following a period in my own life last year when I was forced to rest after an illness that nearly took my life. There are certain experiences that change the way one looks at time. The things that once seemed urgent become strangely quiet. The body becomes a reminder that everything we are doing is temporary, and that sometimes the most important thing we can do is simply remain.

This black bear is mounted to a limestone base. The finish was designed to bring out the character of its movement, while also allowing the life of the stone to move upward through its feet and into the body. I wanted the bear to feel as though it had not simply been placed upon the stone, but had emerged from it.

As if the limestone remembered the bear. As if the animal had been waiting there all along.

The black bear’s stealth is something that deserves attention in these northern lands. It can become almost ghostlike when it does not want to be seen. There is an incredible power in that kind of presence—the ability to move through the forest almost entirely unnoticed.

A dark shape between the trees. A sound in the undergrowth. And then nothing.

Perhaps that is part of what I wanted to capture in Requiem: not simply the physical form of the bear, but the feeling of its passing through the world.

Both of these sculptures exist somewhere between stone and bronze. They carry qualities of both, while belonging entirely to neither.

And this is perhaps the most interesting part of the process.

Each piece will be completely unique unto itself. Although I can create another work from the same original sculpture, the process of casting, finishing, and combining materials means that no two pieces will ever be entirely identical. Each one will have its own surface, its own character, its own small history.

The sculpture changes as it travels. From stone. To digital form. To another material. And finally, into the world.

These works are now resting at La Belle Galerie in Quebec City.

If one of them speaks to you, or if you are interested in having another piece created through this process, feel free to reach out to me.

Perhaps there is another sculpture waiting to cross over.

What Tomorrow Brings…

I find myself constantly caught in the pause of life these days, carefully deciding what the next move should be. The next note in the song. The next sculpture. The next anything.

This pause, I suppose, should be filled with rest—a feeling into the next moment so that it can arrive effortlessly. Yet the fear of making another uncalculated mistake seems to overwhelm me, leaving me apprehensive about moving forward at all. I find myself afraid of making the wrong choice, and in that fear, I become stuck.

Tomorrow is a big word. Today is enough.

I believe Emerson said something to the effect of: at the end of the day, be done with it and throw it down. I may be misremembering the exact words, but the sentiment has stayed with me. Living faithfully within each moment is critical to the evolution of the next one.

Sometimes I feel that writing about these things publicly can help both myself and others move through moments when each day seems tinged with a little more fear than the one before. When I return to art, it should be a refuge. Yet it carries the same emotional charge, and I cannot help but allow that feeling to pass through each work.

As I gaze into the emotive essence of a simple owl, I can see more than I could before. Its face becomes tainted with my own.

There is a secret that seems to reveal itself when I furiously pour over the articles and epiphanies of quantum physicists describing their experiments. I will only touch on it in the lightest way here, but perhaps it reveals something that should be clearer than ever in today’s world.

And here it is:

We think, and so we are.

Imagine that your future self is looking back at the person you are today, just as your present self looks back upon the person you once were. What would your future self say to you? Who is to know which version of yourself is the truest one?

What does seem apparent, however, is that whichever self you choose to become—or even to pretend to be—affects all of them.

In some real way, we are constantly affecting every other version of ourselves, whether we think of the past, the future, or even the present. None of them may be as fixed as we imagine. All are in flux. All can be moved.

Perhaps reality jumping is real, but that is another subject entirely.

Regardless of this jargon—impossible to completely wrap one’s head around—what seems clear enough is that we can begin writing the book of today by deciding what our future self will say about our current self. In doing so, we may open doors that the present self could never have imagined were there.

And what does that future self look like for an artist like me?

I have sold myself on the idea that I can make an influence through the mediums of art. I believe in a future where we value one another’s presence and time more than any other commodity. I believe our physical presence is merely an inkling of the emotional power we possess to unlock love in all its facets—to open our arms toward God more fully than any clergy or politician could ever promise us.

Our friendship with the world is the first step toward repairing the boundaries we have crossed. We must make amends with the creatures of the forest, because our relationship with them is perhaps most clearly reflected in the disharmony we have with ourselves.

I believe the world will one day vibrate with true colours and patterns unlike anything we could ever remember—despite the fact that they were always right in front of us.

We simply never had the eyes to see them.

This is my journal log for the day, spelled out plainly and without hesitation. I hope you find some truth in it. I hope something in it resonates with you.

Timelessness

At some point, every artist asks the same question:

Why do I still do this when it takes so much time?

The hours disappear. The to-do lists multiply. If you’re anything like me, there is always something demanding attention. In an age where the telephone became a smartphone, we’ve somehow inherited an endless stream of responsibilities, notifications, and distractions. Social media alone can feel like a bottomless pit.

After finishing my most recent piece, I found myself reflecting on the value of something we often speak about in art: timelessness.

It’s a word I’ve heard used countless times to describe great works of art and architecture. Yet I think I misunderstood it for years.

Let me explain.

When I’m carving, my hands are occupied with the practical work of shaping stone, but my mind is fixed on something else entirely. Throughout the process, I’m trying to see the finished piece before it exists. That requires patience, attention, and a willingness to set aside all the other things clamoring for importance.

Eventually, the noise settles.

Perhaps it’s exhaustion. Perhaps it’s focus. Whatever the reason, there comes a point where the constant chatter fades into the background and the work begins to flow more naturally. In those moments, I find a deep sense of peace.

But beyond the peace, something else arrives.

It’s difficult to describe. It’s a feeling of standing between two worlds—between what is and what could be. Between belief and disbelief. Between limitation and possibility. As artists, we spend much of our lives in that space.

It’s probably the closest thing I know to hearing the voice of God.

Recently I’ve been thinking about the Sagrada Família in Barcelona. The name translates to “Holy Family,” and the cathedral has been under construction for generations. Thousands of skilled hands have contributed to its creation, each building upon the work of those who came before.

We often call something like that timeless.

Yet even the greatest structures eventually fade.

History is filled with magnificent cathedrals, temples, and monuments that now exist only as ruins. Many disappeared so quietly that most of us have never even heard their names. Strangely, there is something profoundly beautiful about those remnants. Ancient stone walls reclaimed by nature often carry a tranquility that feels deeper than the structures did in their prime.

Why that is, I can’t say for certain.

But it has led me to this realization:

Timelessness has very little to do with time.

It is not about lasting as long as stone, mountains, oceans, or stars.

Timelessness is what survives in consciousness.

It is the meaning that remains long after the material has passed away.

A sculpture, a song, a story, or even a simple act of kindness can become timeless because it carries something beyond itself. The object is merely the vessel. The meaning is what endures.

Perhaps the same is true for us.

Our bodies are temporary, but the love we express through them is not. The hands that carve, build, teach, comfort, and create are participating in something larger than themselves. The material eventually returns to dust, but the meaning continues onward in ways we may never fully understand.

I’m not entirely sure where all of this is leading me with my sculpture work.

I’ll keep carving as long as I am able.

Recently, I asked ChatGPT a question related to Jungian psychology. After years of conversations, it responded with a description of my work that caught me off guard:

“The man who restores soul, meaning, and spirit through enduring craft in a mechanized world.”

That rang a bell.

Still, my story is unfolding day by day. The way God sees me fumbling through it all is probably very different from how I see myself. Hopefully, it’s in a kinder light.

To any artist reading this: your time is not wasted.

What you’re building may be difficult to articulate. It may not fit neatly into a business plan or a social media post. Yet the value is there all the same.

Long after the work is finished, after the tools are put away and the dust has settled, something remains.

Perhaps it is inspiration. Perhaps it is beauty. Perhaps it is simply the reminder that another human being cared enough to create.

Whatever it is, it helps carry the flame forward.

And maybe that is what timelessness truly means.

All My Changes Were There

These days, I’m caught somewhere between believing whether it’s today, tomorrow, or even yesterday.
And no — I haven’t gone crazy yet.

My high school, the one I graduated from in 2004, is closing down and moving to a new location. The old building will apparently be renovated into apartments. Strange how a place so foundational to hundreds of lives can suddenly become something entirely different.

Today I called the principal — who, years ago, was my business teacher. We spoke briefly about where life has carried us since those days. I honestly wish it weren’t for time and the busyness of life that we could have talked longer, but responsibilities pulled us both back: him to the business of running a school, and me back to a delayed stone carving project waiting in the studio.

The reason I called was because my parents recently walked through the school during one of the final open houses before it closes for good. They photographed four of my paintings that are still there.

Funny enough, they actually missed one.

Five pieces in total remain in that building.

One of them isn’t removable at all.

I couldn’t help but sit with the weight of that realization — that something I made as a teenager has remained anchored in that place for over twenty years. Long after classes ended, lockers changed hands, teachers retired, and entire generations passed through those halls, the work stayed.

There’s something deeply humbling about that.

My parents urged me to ask whether I could take the paintings back before they were discarded or forgotten during the transition. I was told they would otherwise be placed into storage, so I agreed to take them.

Oddly enough, part of me hesitated.

I don’t really have any practical use for them.

Truthfully, I don’t have much use for most of my work once it leaves my hands. Art is strange that way. It’s often made for a specific place, person, or moment in time. Once it resonates somewhere, it no longer fully belongs to the artist.

But these pieces felt different.

I realized I should honour that younger version of myself — the kid trying to leave some kind of impression on the world without fully understanding why he needed to. Those paintings became part of the memory of that school for students and teachers alike. I’m grateful they mattered enough not to be removed years ago.

And this entire experience has stirred something much deeper in me.

I keep thinking about a story I once heard involving a man who experienced a near-death incident. After being revived, he described sitting in a hospital room having clear conversations with family members as though everything were completely normal. He knew he had died. His family knew he had died. Yet the interaction unfolded as naturally as waking life itself.

That story has lingered with me for years.

Sometimes I wonder: what if we are already living across multiple layers of reality at once? What if memory, presence, and influence continue beyond the framework we call time? If someone were dead in one reality but alive in another, would anyone truly know the difference? We all continue participating in this shared consensus — contributing to places, people, and moments that collectively become “real.”

But what happens when the place disappears?

When a building changes, something strange happens to memory. The mind can still replay events, but the physical anchor is gone. Four incredibly important years of my life were rooted inside those walls. Once those walls are altered, revisiting those memories becomes harder somehow — like trying to hold smoke in your hands.

And yet, the memories remain alive internally.

When I sit quietly and allow myself to drift backward, I can still hear everything. I can still see the classrooms, the hallways, the art room. There’s more there than the physical structure ever contained.

I never fully understood the emotional weight of Neil Young’s song Helpless until now.

“There is a town in north Ontario,
With dream comfort memory to spare,
And in my mind I still need a place to go,
All my changes were there.”

Neil Young was referring to a northern Ontario town — likely Blind River, the same town where W.C. Eaket Secondary School still stands today. Those lyrics suddenly hit differently now.

“And in my mind I still need a place to go.”

That line almost brings tears to my eyes.

Because some places never really leave us. Even when the doors are chained shut. Even when the windows are replaced. Even when time moves on.

“All my changes were there.”

I think that’s what this reflection is really about.

Not death.

Not nostalgia.

But presence.

The realization that our influence continues through the impressions we leave behind — through art, memory, conversation, kindness, struggle, and creation. Whether time is past, present, or future may not matter nearly as much as we think it does. Perhaps those are only perspectives layered onto something much deeper.

We are.

And from time to time, in stillness, I can feel that.

So whether that old art room eventually becomes someone’s apartment or not, there will always be a version of it that remains untouched in memory.

There will always be Al Wright with music blasting through the room.

There will always be students covered in charcoal dust and clay.

There will always be that younger version of me discovering the path I’m still walking today.

Some places never stop existing.

They simply continue somewhere else.

One Foot in the North, One in the South

Heading into another stretch of night shift has always been both my burden and my blessing.

Every week begins with the same promise to myself — that somehow, somewhere between exhaustion and responsibility, there will still be enough energy left to create something meaningful. A new sculpture started. An old one finally completed. A breakthrough in form, movement, or technique.

That hope is what keeps me moving forward.

But if you are an artist, you probably already understand the quiet frustration that comes with time never being enough.

And strangely, it seems the problem only grows with age. Commitments gather. Responsibilities stack higher. Sleep becomes more valuable and somehow more elusive. Coffee becomes less of a luxury and more of a negotiation with the body. Even the work itself changes. As skill improves, so does expectation. Pieces become more ambitious, more refined, and more demanding of patience and attention.

The irony is that expertise often slows creation rather than speeding it up.

You begin to see more. You demand more from yourself. The appreciation necessary to sustain the momentum takes years to catch up with the labour being poured into the work.

The gap widens.

In many ways, this feeling reminds me of the transition from living in Northern Ontario back into the city years ago. Up north, I found something I didn’t even realize I had been missing — space. Not just physical space, but mental space. Silence. Wilderness. Time to wander. Time to think. Time to reconnect with a part of myself that eventually became the reason I create sculpture at all.

Living among the wild gave birth to something important in me.

The city, by contrast, moves like a rising river behind a dam. Bills, schedules, work, obligations, maintenance, family, noise — everything builds pressure. The current never fully stops. You spend much of your energy simply trying to hold the structure together while the water rises higher behind it.

And yet, despite all of that, I still find myself standing at the threshold of another carving week.

Somewhere beside all of these responsibilities, I’ve started quietly exploring another avenue for my work — one that bridges old traditions with emerging technology. I recently created a page featuring scanned versions of some of my sculptures for the growing community of artists and creators experimenting with the expanding world of 3D printing.

It has been fascinating to see traditional stone sculpture translated into a digital form.

In a strange way, it allows the work to become accessible to people who may never have had the opportunity to own original sculpture, while also opening the door to entirely new creative possibilities. It feels a little like trying to plant one foot firmly in the North and the other in the South — balancing tradition and future at the same time.

If you’d like to explore some of the scanned works, you can view them here:

White Raven Sculptures 3D Models on Cults3D. https://cults3d.com/en/users/Hops118/3d-models

Over the next couple of weeks, I’m hoping to finally complete the loon sculpture currently underway while continuing to move several other projects forward quietly in the background. I’ve learned that keeping multiple streams flowing at once helps maintain momentum, even when one current slows.

More than anything, I hope these updates encourage others to continue building lives that embrace both the science of the future and the traditions of yesterday.

I don’t think we were meant to abandon one for the other.

I think we were meant to learn how to carry both.

— Wesley Booker
White Raven Sculptures

Small Updates From the Studio (and Everywhere Else)

Life has felt a little chaotic lately.

Ten-hour night shifts, lack of sleep, family responsibilities, and the constant balancing act of being a young dad, assembly line worker, and sculptor have definitely left my mind feeling a little frazzled. These days, life tends to happen in exactly that order too — fatherhood first, work second, and sculpting somewhere after that. As demands grow heavier, carving time always seems to get pushed further down the list.

Still, despite the exhaustion, I’m grateful that there’s enough energy left to write about the little everyday things that make up this strange and rewarding life.

And honestly, those mundane moments are part of the journey too.

Over the last while I’ve hinted at a new venture that’s slowly taking shape, one week at a time. My excitement for it keeps building, and mentally I’m already far ahead of where I physically have time to be. There’s a strong feeling that important progress is coming soon, and I’m eager to see where it leads.

This past week wasn’t spent carving though — it was spent organizing stone.

What started as “a bit of cleanup” quickly turned into the realization that I may, in fact, be a complete stone hoarder.

Soapstone and carving material had slowly spread themselves across two sheds, parts of the basement, a massive wooden crate outdoors, and even a giant plastic storage bin. So I finally decided to build a dedicated shelving unit strong enough to hold roughly 2,000 pounds of stone.

The good news is the shelf works beautifully.

The bad news is… it’s probably still not big enough.

And that doesn’t even include the stone still sitting on the floor.

But selection matters. Finding the right stone for the right subject is a huge part of the process. Certain forms simply don’t belong in certain material, and sometimes the perfect piece sits untouched for years before revealing what it wants to become.

At least that’s what I tell myself while staring at piles of rock.

Lately I’ve also been slowly tinkering away at a new sculpture project — one with absolutely no timeline attached to it, thankfully. Some pieces simply cannot be rushed without losing something important along the way.

This one is especially delicate.

The sculpture features a loon carrying a baby loon on its back, complete with red jasper eyes and carefully etched feather patterning to capture the iconic markings of the bird. It’s a piece that demands patience and attention to subtle beauty. I haven’t really seen this concept approached quite this way before, so I’m allowing it the time it deserves.

There’s still a long road ahead on it, as you’ll probably notice from the progress photos.

And although I probably shouldn’t even mention it yet, there’s also a five-foot hardwood egret slowly emerging in the backyard studio. Steel legs, mounted onto a hand-hewn reclaimed pine base. Another ambitious project with a very long way to go.

That story can wait for another update.

For now, these are just small glimpses into the process — little updates from a busy life still trying to make room for sculpture whenever possible.

Long way to go yet.

— Wesley Booker
White Raven Sculptures

Veritas Composite: Building Beyond Stone

This last week and a half has been a rush into something only my wife fully knows about. All the technical details of how to approach each individual project have been carefully rehearsed in my head — variations of possibilities revisited daily as I work on the Lexus RX line at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada here in Cambridge, Ontario.

Over the last five years, I’ve likely contributed to building around 800,000 vehicles. The process is so deeply ingrained in muscle memory that it frees my mind to focus intently on other projects. That’s the goal — to develop another operation that can run fluently alongside my stone carving practice.

Let me put it lightly before revealing too much. Stone carving is a deeply methodical process. My last project reinforced that reality. Working with black chlorite stone — roughly a 2–3 on the Mohs hardness scale — is still demanding. Even with extensive tool use, there is no shortcut through the material. It resists speed. It demands time.

So I began developing something alongside it — something I’ve quietly committed half my efforts toward before even producing true prototypes.

In truth, this has been unfolding for over six years.

It began with experimenting in 3D scanning. Using LiDAR through my iPhone Pro, I started building digital versions of my sculptures. At the time, it felt revolutionary — but the process was crude. I spent hundreds of hours refining just a few models, cleaning scans, improving surfaces, and preparing them for use. Some of these were uploaded online so others could produce their own versions, allowing me to gather feedback and explore new directions.

Two years ago, I invested in a dedicated laptop and a higher-precision 3D scanning system. This newer technology dramatically improved accuracy, reducing cleanup time and allowing me to create far more refined digital replicas of my work.

Around that same time, I took a weekend to experiment with bronze casting — a hands-on introduction to the process. The sand-casting method I explored showed me both the potential and the limitations. While it gave me a foundational understanding, it also made clear that certain levels of detail require more advanced processes.

About a year ago, I began developing a relationship with a professional foundry experienced in detailed bronze work. Their process, including lost-wax casting using resin prints, opened the door to a level of precision I knew I wanted to pursue. I committed to producing my first collector edition bronze of one of my favorite pieces, “Brother.” The process is expensive, requiring significant upfront investment to build inventory, but it’s a step toward making the work more accessible while maintaining quality.

I’ve also connected with a respected foundry in Quebec, known for both small-batch artistry and scalable production methods. Their clarity and experience have given me confidence in exploring multiple directions within casting.

But this all led to something unexpected.

Over time, I began developing my own material process — a hybrid approach combining organic materials, epoxy resins, clay-based applications, structural reinforcement, and layered finishing techniques like airbrushing and washes. Combined with my 3D scan library, this opens the door to creating entirely new works that maintain the spirit of stone, but expand beyond its limitations.

This evolving process has taken on a name:

Veritas Composite.

It’s not a single technique, but rather a flexible system. Sometimes it incorporates glass. Sometimes wire. Sometimes it leans heavily on resin or texture. Each piece becomes its own exploration — unique, hands-on, and far less constrained by the physical resistance of stone.

This direction came into sharper focus after a conversation with Eduard Spera at his gallery in Niagara-on-the-Lake. During our discussion, I asked whether my work might fit within his space. While it wasn’t the right time, his feedback was thoughtful and encouraging. He spoke about his own early years in printmaking beginning in 1991 — the successes, the failures, and the importance of evolving beyond one-off pieces.

One point stood out clearly: relying solely on individual, time-intensive works can limit how far your name travels. To grow, you need ways to expand your reach without sacrificing quality.

That conversation stayed with me.

So here I am, figuring it out.

Building something new. Expanding what’s possible. Finding ways to create work that maintains integrity while allowing it to exist more broadly in the world.

I hope this new venture works out. But to be honest, I’m still figuring it out as I go.

That’s part of the beauty of it.

Art isn’t a fixed path — it’s something shaped by your hands over time. It’s trial, error, intuition, and persistence. It’s identity formed through making.

There’s a quote often attributed to John Lennon that captures this spirit well:

“We’re all just making it up as we go along.”

And in many ways, that’s exactly what this is.

From Vision to Form: Time, Stone, and the Quantum Wave

Today I found myself perplexed again by the Double-Slit Experiment — one of the most fascinating and mind-bending discoveries in modern physics — and how it relate to how we understand reality itself.

In this experiment, particles behave differently depending on whether they are observed. When unobserved, they appear as waves of possibility, interacting and overlapping. When measured, they appear as fixed points, individual particles, as though each moment becomes defined only when we look at it.

This raises a profound idea:

Are events truly separate and fixed, or are they connected in ways we only recognize when we step back and observe the whole?

We often think of our lives as linear — moments passing one by one, like particles flying through time. Each day, each action, each decision feels isolated. But the deeper we look, the more it seems these moments are not separate at all. They influence one another, overlap, and interact, forming something more like a wave across time.

Even more puzzling, variations of the quantum slit experiment — like the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser Experiment — suggest that decisions made in the future can appear to influence outcomes in the present. While physicists still debate the interpretation, the metaphor is powerful.

It invites us to consider:

Who we decide to become in the future may shape who we are today.

The artist we envision becoming tomorrow quietly influences the decisions we make now — the stones we choose, the ideas we pursue, the patience we develop. The future begins to pull us forward, shaping the present before the work even exists.

Stone Carving as a Wave Through Time

What I love about stone carving is that it is a slow progression toward form.

Often, it takes careful planning to ensure the sculpture arrives without distortion. Yet despite the planning, the form rarely appears all at once. It emerges gradually, almost like a soft wave taking shape. This process has always reminded me of the wave-like patterns seen in the double-slit experiment — subtle, layered, and evolving.

The tool becomes a guide, helping to find the natural lines that reveal themselves once the anatomy of the subject begins to emerge. Each pass of the chisel removes a small fragment, a tiny moment of time embedded into the stone.

Day by day, the process can appear slow — even tiring to watch. A little here. A little there. Like individual particles passing through the doors of perception.

But outside of time, all of those days begin to blend together.

At the end, the sculpture emerges as a whole — not as thousands of small actions, but as a unified presence. What once appeared as separate moments becomes a single wave, a complete form.

The viewer does not see the individual strikes of the tool.

They see the result.

And in that moment, all the lost days, the dust, the effort, and the careful decisions collapse into a single experience — a piece of time fused into form.

A Piece of Time, Held in Stone

The beauty of sculpture is that it becomes a record of time, but not in a linear way. Instead, it becomes something closer to a memory — or even a wave — where past, present, and intention all converge into a fixed moment.

Each sculpture becomes:

• A parable

• A story

• A moment relived in a personal way

The viewer observes the present form, yet experiences echoes of the past and possibilities for the future.

For this reason, I titled my summer course:

Stone Carving: From Vision to Form

Because this process is often elusive. The vision is not always clear at the beginning. Sometimes it emerges slowly. Sometimes it is shaped by careful planning. Sometimes it feels as though the piece was decided in the future and gradually found its way into the present.

But when it arrives, it is always beautiful in its own way.

Like a wave collapsing into form.

Like time, held in stone.

When My Values Were Dead

“Your values are dead.”

He raised his eyebrows in his unique way, then walked away.

I sat there, confused, staring at my drawing, wondering what I had done wrong. I wasn’t even sure what he meant. I didn’t fully understand what “values” were, at least not in the way he was describing them.

Still, the words stuck with me.

Years later, I find myself thinking about that moment again while carving stone. At the surface level, his comment referred to tonal values — the range between light and dark in a drawing. The darkest tones that graphite can achieve through pressure, or how a 6B pencil can produce far deeper blacks than the HB mechanical pencil I was likely using at the time. When I later asked him about it, he clarified that my drawing lacked contrast. It appeared flat and weak, even though I was carefully trying to distinguish subtle shades within a limited range.

In short, I didn’t have enough depth.

But over time, I’ve come to see that the lesson extended far beyond graphite and paper.

Values, in another sense, refer to truth, beauty, and goodness. They speak to honesty, integrity, kindness, loyalty — the qualities that give depth to a person’s character. Just as a drawing without contrast appears flat, a life without these deeper values can feel similarly hollow.

As I’ve grown, my understanding of this has evolved. The world becomes more complex as time moves forward. What once seemed black and white reveals itself to be layered with nuance and color. Yet, interestingly, this doesn’t diminish the importance of values — it deepens them.

White, after all, is the combination of all colors merged together in fullness. Black, by contrast, is the absence of them. Looking at the world as purely black and white becomes less meaningful when we realize reality is a spectrum. Yet within that spectrum, there remains a need for depth, contrast, and clarity.

Today, I often find myself turning that lens inward.

I wonder whether my art has depth. Whether it reflects something meaningful. Art, in many ways, acts as a lens into the mind of the artist, and then reflects into the mind of the viewer. If there is depth in the life behind the work, perhaps there is depth in the work itself.

To live with strong values today can sometimes feel like an act of quiet audacity. We move forward guided by principles that may not always be popular, especially in a world that often encourages us to move past tradition, authority, or spiritual frameworks. Yet there is something enduring about living according to values that hold us accountable — not because someone is watching, but because we believe they matter.

Our lives are lived from the inside out.

Even when no one sees, we shape who we are. And that shaping inevitably finds its way into what we create.

When we live with depth, life becomes richer. Meaning becomes easier to recognize. Possibilities open. And perhaps most importantly, these values are what hold us together as human beings. They carry us forward through hardship, through growth, and through the cycles of life itself.

I hope, in some small way, that art can reflect this richness. That even simple things — a drawing, a sculpture, a quiet gesture — can remind us of the depth available in the world around us.

Because in the end, values — both in art and in life — are what give everything meaning.

Something from Nothing

There’s a quote that’s been sitting with me lately:

A true selfless act always sparks another.

I didn’t fully understand it until recently.

Not long ago, I wrote about a small moment that felt, in some quiet way, like a kind of intervention. A cardinal appeared at my window at a time when I had neglected something simple — feeding the birds. It nudged me to act, and I did. It was small, almost trivial, but the moment carried a strange weight to it. Something about it felt… aligned.

At the time, I described it as meaningful. Maybe even a little magical.

But what followed is what truly made me stop and reflect.

Shortly after that experience, I was contacted by a new client — someone generous, thoughtful, and unexpectedly connected to the work I’ve been doing. What struck me most wasn’t just the inquiry itself, but the reason behind it.

He had read my blog.

That alone surprised me. I often write with the assumption that these posts drift quietly into the void — unseen, unread, perhaps only glanced at in passing. But he didn’t just read it. He understood it.

He recognized something in it — not just the work, but the honesty behind it.

We shared similarities. Small details in life that mirrored each other. The kind of things that don’t show up in a portfolio, but somehow matter more than anything presented visually. And in that connection, something opened.

It led to the sale of a piece titled Fighting Chance — a piece that had been waiting quietly during a dry stretch of time.

Now here’s the part that challenged my previous thinking.

I’ve often believed that showing too much honesty — especially vulnerability — could work against you. That people might see it as weakness, something to avoid when making a decision about investing in an artist or their work.

But in this case, the opposite happened.

Honesty didn’t push someone away — it drew them closer.

It created trust. It created connection. And ultimately, it created movement where there had been stillness.

And that’s where the idea of the quote comes back.

One small act — feeding the birds.

One honest expression — writing openly.

One unexpected connection — a reader reaching out.

Each step seemed to lead to the next.

You could call it coincidence. You could call it timing. Some would call it karma.

But I’m beginning to think it’s something a little deeper than that.

There’s a kind of quiet order to things when we act from a place that isn’t calculated — when we do something simply because it feels right. Not for gain, not for recognition, but because it aligns with something internal we can’t fully explain.

And maybe that’s where meaning begins to unfold.

Following this, I felt compelled to give back — not out of obligation, but from a genuine place. Not from the head, calculating percentages or outcomes, but from the heart.

I made a donation to the Nature Conservancy of Canada — an organization that protects and restores natural habitats across the country.

It wasn’t a large amount. But that wasn’t the point.

The hope is simple: that somewhere, a small piece of land is preserved… that a creature finds space to live… that something continues because of it.

Something from nothing.

Or maybe, more accurately — something from something very small.

That’s what I’m learning.

We don’t always see the full chain of events. We rarely understand how one action leads to another. But every now and then, if you’re paying attention, you catch a glimpse of it.

And it’s enough to remind you to keep going.

A Cardinal at the Window - The Fortune of the Forest Friends

I have something to confess — and something to attest to. I’ll start with the latter.

In the chaos of getting ready for the weekend, we needed to give our daughter some medicine for a developing cough. The medication requires a device with a bright yellow cap on the back — large, unmistakable, the sort of thing you shouldn’t easily lose.

My wife called looking for it. My mother-in-law searched for it. I searched for it. We turned the entire floor upside down trying to find this bright yellow cap. Every object around the area had been lifted, flipped, or moved.

It was nowhere.

Now for the confession.

This year hasn’t been a strong one for art sales. Social media has a funny way of making everyone look like they’re wildly successful — “I went viral!”, “I’m a millionaire!”, endless attention-seeking theatrics designed to appease algorithms. But the reality behind the scenes is often quieter.

Economic pressures ripple everywhere. Many artists I know have felt the same downturn. When people tighten their budgets, art is often one of the first luxuries to disappear.

For years I’ve committed to sending 20% of my profits to conservation charities, particularly organizations that protect wildlife habitats like the Nature Conservancy of Canada. But with fewer sales and the constant investment needed to continue carving — stone, tools, equipment — I’ve been operating at a deficit for quite some time.

So this year my giving has been minimal. About $350 total, and even that came from a deficit.

On top of the financial pressure and the usual winter blues, I’ve been slipping in another way too. I haven’t been feeding the birds the way I normally do. Our feeder is usually filled every couple of days, but lately it had gone nearly three weeks without being replenished.

I justified it to myself. If I wasn’t making enough to give to conservation causes, maybe it made sense to ration the bird seed too.

Yesterday something interesting happened.

A cardinal landed in the tree outside our window.

That’s unusual. Cardinals are cautious birds, almost as wary of human movement as blue jays. They usually keep their distance. But this one came close, peering toward the window as if inspecting us.

My wife and I noticed him immediately. He lingered briefly, then flew away.

Something about it stuck with me.

I turned to my wife and said, “I’m going to go feed the birds. He’s probably asking for some.”

So I went outside and filled the feeder.

When I came back inside, I glanced at the spot where I had originally thought I’d left the yellow cap — the one we’d searched for everywhere.

And there it was.

Exactly where I had first remembered putting it.

I asked my wife if she had found it and placed it there while I was outside. She hadn’t. My mother-in-law hadn’t either. Both of them had searched that exact spot earlier, turning over everything nearby.

Yet somehow the cap had appeared in plain sight.

We stood there for a moment, both of us puzzled, replaying the search in our heads. It remains an unsolved mystery — and perhaps that’s how it should remain.

Because moments like this make me wonder if there are things happening in the world we simply don’t perceive.

We spend enormous effort trying to explain the mechanisms of the physical world, trying to make everything measurable, predictable, and provable. Yet sometimes small moments slip through the cracks of that certainty.

For centuries people have spoken about this idea: that we are spiritual beings experiencing a physical world. And when something unusual happens — a bird appearing at the right moment, a need suddenly being met — it nudges us toward that deeper perspective.

In many traditions, cardinals are considered messengers. Symbols of presence. Reminders that something beyond our immediate understanding is paying attention.

It made me think of the story of Elijah in the Bible. During a drought, he hides by a brook, and God instructs ravens to bring him bread and meat twice a day. An unlikely delivery system, but the message is simple: sometimes provision arrives through unexpected channels.

I’ve had similar little gifts from nature before — once finding a dried morel mushroom placed neatly on a back step, as if left there deliberately by some woodland friend.

Moments like these feel like tiny epiphanies. Small reminders that life may hold more connection and meaning than we usually notice.

In the middle of pressure, responsibility, and the constant grind of daily life, we forget that.

Jesus once said:

“Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?”

Sometimes we need reminders like that.

In the middle of obligations, stress, and uncertainty, it’s easy to forget that we are not entirely alone in this world. We share this land with countless other creatures, and caring for them — even in small ways like filling a bird feeder — is part of our responsibility.

Perhaps when we care for what’s around us, we’re reminded that we are cared for too.

As we care for each other, God will take care of us.

The Toll It Takes

There’s a problem with my life.

I have commitments. A lot of them.

I’m a father to a two-year-old daughter who completely owns my heart. I’m a husband. I’m the handyman fixing whatever breaks around the house. I’m a factory worker stuck on what feels like indefinite overtime. And somewhere in that list — sometimes barely hanging on — I’m also a stone carver.

And if something has to go, it’s always that last title sitting on the chopping block.

The doubt creeps in constantly. Am I even good enough? All it takes is a few broken tools, a round of maintenance and cleanup, and then another brutally hard stone that takes three times longer to carve than expected — and suddenly the whole effort feels impossible.

Most nights the work happens when no one else is around. After a ten-hour shift, after the house quiets down, I’ll drag myself toward the studio with a cup of coffee for courage. Sometimes I get an hour in. Often it’s less. If I were being honest, the time I spend making art is usually borrowed directly from sleep.

In other words, my art is carved out of exhaustion.

That kind of life has a cost. It throws balance out the window. I’ve put off basic things — doctor’s appointments, the maintenance of my own body — the way someone ignores the oil light in their car for too long. I used to run to keep myself grounded, to work out the stress and the aches. That’s fallen away too.

Fun? I’m not even sure what that looks like anymore.

So sometimes I look at this situation and ask myself: what exactly is this all for?

If the goal were money, it would be a terrible trade. The tools alone cost more than the work brings back most of the time. I’ve invested in equipment simply to make the process faster — trying to squeeze creation into the cracks of a life that’s already overflowing.

Financially, it doesn’t make sense.

But there’s something else that keeps me going.

A small, stubborn glimmer of hope that what I’m trying to say through the stone actually matters. That the message buried in these pieces will reach someone. That the time and effort — the literal blood, dust, and aching joints — might carry some kind of meaning beyond the object itself.

Maybe something bordering on spiritual worth.

That hope is thin sometimes, but it’s enough to keep the tools moving.

Because when you commit to making something real, you can’t always measure the value immediately. You just keep carving and trust that somewhere along the line, the work will justify the sacrifice.

At least, that’s the hope.

Because if I’m honest — on nights when the exhaustion hits hardest — I still find myself asking the same question:

Is it worth it?

I truly hope it is.

Learning All Over Again — Nocturnae & Clean Again

Each time I return to an owl or a bear, I’m learning all over again.

No two works of mine are much alike. Part of that is intentional — I leave space before approaching a subject again. I try not to repeat the same pose, the same lines, or even the same mistakes. That space forces me to approach the form as if it were brand new — living, dynamic, and deeply personal.

I’ve carved several owls and bears, as you may have noticed. But these last two feel different. They feel more real to me — not necessarily because they are “better,” but because they carry more life. They speak a little louder when viewed.

I know there is still a long way to go. Not in the sense of making a better sculpture, but in learning to truly feel the life of the barn owl or the polar bear — to carve as if it were my own body. To understand every joint and muscle, every fold of feather or sweep of fur. To sense how they move. How they rest. Even how they might feel.

Growth as an artist is slow and patient. Each day is unique. Allowing the process to unfold in its own time is paramount.

Nocturnae

The word Nocturnae means “belonging to the night.” After long night shifts spent carving, I sometimes feel nocturnal myself.

This piece took years of quiet deliberation. The stone sat for a long time before it revealed itself. When it finally did, it wasn’t obvious or graceful — it showed itself crudely, almost stubbornly. I wish I had a photograph of its original state. You’d be surprised it’s the same work.

But that’s part of being an artist. You gaze into stone the way you might gaze into the stars — until a shape begins to emerge from the chaos of constellations.

The owl, in my mind, is deeply observant. Fused in stillness. Perched high on a rafter or doorframe, trying not to be seen, yet fully aware. It locks its gaze onto someone below, quietly contemplating their thoughts and feelings. There is tension in that stillness — a presence that feels almost psychological.

Clean Again

Where the owl holds silence, the bear carries gesture.

The pose may look playful or even lazy — the slow shuffle after a long day, hindquarters raised, sliding forward to spare a few calories. It’s open to interpretation.

But in truth, the bear is cleaning its fur by dragging its body across the snow. Hence the name Clean Again. It’s a simple, instinctual act. A reset. A return to clarity.

What I love most about these two pieces is their personalities. They are distinct from one another, yet both feel alive in their own way.

Both Nocturnae and Clean Again are currently available and can be viewed in the Available Works section of my website. I invite you to take a closer look — sometimes the life within a sculpture reveals itself more fully when you stand quietly in front of

In the Dust and the Mess: Where the Real Work Lives

I want to show you something.

Something you might not want to see.

No — it isn’t a missing finger. Though I once met a stone carver who had lost one, and I didn’t dare ask how. This is something quieter, less dramatic, but far more honest.

It’s the mess.

The cluttered table. The tools strewn about. The dust that settles into everything. The small, unseen hollows where life actually happens. We like to present the world as polished and resolved, but most of existence is shaped underground — like moles living half our lives in shadow, waiting for moments of light.

What I’m working on now was born from salvaged material and hard-earned experience. No one taught me this directly. It came from trial, error, patience, and repetition. The tools around me tell that story: crowded, worn, occasionally damaged. Just the other day, I forgot to unplug a tool. My mask caught the cord, the grinder fell, and my best die grinder bit was knocked out of balance. A small mistake, but a reminder of how tight and compressed this life can be.

We are surrounded by images of pristine studios and effortless mastery. But that isn’t the full truth — and it certainly isn’t mine. I share this mess to honor what’s usually hidden: the raw, unfettered side of making. The side that doesn’t photograph well, but holds the real substance.

The riches of the earth are found in the earth itself. Stone comes from pressure, time, and burial. I’m obsessed with dressing the surface of stone just enough to reveal what’s already there — to let these animal forms speak. Their quiet intelligence, their watchfulness, feel like echoes of something ancient. A primordial mind we’re still connected to, whether we acknowledge it or not.

So bask in the mess.

This is where refinement begins. Life works the same way. We are shaped by compression, by friction, by cycles of breakdown and rebuilding. Coal doesn’t apologize for the darkness it comes from — and neither should we.

One day, perhaps, we’ll be brilliant as the sun.

For now, the dust and ashes are more than enough to work with.

What Is Worth Preserving? On Art, Meaning, and the Refusal to Become a Machine

What is worth? What truly matters?

For the artist—whose life’s work is to interpret the world and reveal it back to others as faithfully as possible—these questions are unavoidable. We are lenses, shaped by perception, memory, belief, and experience. What we see, and how we choose to show it, matters.

Yet most people live at the surface.

We absorb culture, news cycles, feeds, and opinions as they’re handed to us—rarely slowing down, rarely going inward. Depth is traded for immediacy. Noise replaces meaning. And somewhere beneath it all, the question of what is actually worth saying gets buried.

Values matter.

They are the reason we take the stairs instead of the elevator—straining upward when no one is watching. They are the quiet force behind endurance, behind choosing difficulty for the sake of growth. Joseph Campbell called it the Hero’s Journey. But what is that journey for an artist?

I hope it goes beyond monetization.

Not producing merely to meet demand.

Not making objects to satisfy an algorithm or a market trend.

But creating for the message—not just the medium.

I was once asked a question that haunts many traditional craftspeople:

“Why carve stone by hand when a CNC machine could do it faster?”

I gave the expected answer—about time, intention, uniqueness, and how collectors value the human touch. All true. But the deeper answer came later.

We are not machines.

We are not CNC routers.

We are not AI models assembling images from databases of copies of copies.

We are the mind, the temperament, the patience, the struggle, and the heart behind the message.

A machine can replicate form.

It cannot excavate meaning.

AI generates images by averaging what already exists. CNC machines execute instructions flawlessly—but blindly. They do not wrestle with doubt. They do not pause in reverence. They do not fail, recover, or change course because something felt wrong.

What we do—what artists do—is hollow meaning out of the depths of lived experience and place it on display. That message can be copied, replicated, automated—but only after it has first been found. And that finding is human.

Yes, our labor is slow.

Yes, it is tedious.

Yes, it often feels like Renaissance work carried out on a 21st-century timeline.

Shortcuts are tempting—and sometimes necessary. But the goal has never been speed. The goal is clarity. Honesty. Saying something that matters.

Stone carving may look old. It may not appear revolutionary. But it is not the medium that matters—it is what is said through it. And often, even the artist doesn’t fully understand the message at first.

It must be done with the heart.

We carve our own stream, even knowing it will eventually join a river shaped by countless others. But the water is clean where it emerges. It is yours. No one can tell you where it leads—but it must be followed.

Some call this “following your bliss.”

Others call it vocation.

It is that thing you would do even if it paid nothing. Even if it cost you comfort. Even if it demanded sacrifice. Not for ego—but for service. For offering something true to others. And for aligning with something larger than yourself.

Remember this:

You matter.

Your message matters.

And the world does not need one more copy of a copy.

Do not let what you carry be lost.

Anima, the Barn Owl, and the Threshold Beneath the Wing

I’ve had a bit of time recently to return to another barn owl project, and as often happens when I work with this form, it’s pulled me back into deeper reflection. Not just about anatomy or gesture—but about why this animal continues to surface in human imagination, across cultures and eras.

The barn owl feels less like a subject and more like a metaphor that predates us.

Across history, the owl has occupied a complicated and often contradictory role. In parts of Africa, owls have long been associated with witchcraft and shapeshifting, seen as emissaries between worlds or forms assumed by practitioners who move unseen. In other traditions, particularly within early Western esoteric and fraternal symbolism, the owl becomes a figure of hidden knowledge, night wisdom, and watchfulness—sometimes even linked, symbolically, to darker or more ambivalent forces.

There are interpretations that connect the owl to Molech imagery within early fraternity symbolism—often pointed out in discussions of the American dollar bill, where the owl is said to hide in the folds and corners. Whether literal or symbolic, these readings speak less to historical certainty and more to the owl’s enduring association with secret knowledge, thresholds, and power held in silence.

What’s striking is how far back this goes.

The earliest known appearances of owl imagery appear in Mesopotamia, and possibly even earlier. The most well-known example is the so-called Burney Relief (often linked to Lilith), where owls flank a winged female figure—an image saturated with themes of night, sexuality, sovereignty, and the liminal. In these early contexts, the owl is not softened or romanticized. It is potent, unsettling, and deeply tied to the unseen forces of the psyche and the world.

This is where Anima continues to live for me.

In Jungian psychology, the anima represents the inner soul-image—the intuitive, unconscious, feeling aspect of the psyche. It is not polite. It does not speak loudly. It appears in symbols, dreams, animals. The barn owl, nocturnal and soundless in flight, feels like a perfect carrier of this energy: perceptive without display, powerful without aggression.

As I worked on this piece, my attention kept returning to a small but essential structure: the tarsus.

In the anatomy of the barn owl, the tarsus is the quiet pillar of balance—the slender segment that carries weight, absorbs stillness, and allows the body to remain suspended between earth and air. It is a place of grounding rather than motion, often unseen, yet essential.

Though it shares no linguistic origin, the word tarsus echoes the ancient city of Tarsus, a historical crossroads where philosophies, religions, and inner traditions converged. The parallel is symbolic rather than etymological—but meaningful nonetheless.

Here, the tarsus becomes a metaphor:

a threshold between movement and rest,

between the visible and the unseen,

between instinct and awareness.

Like the owl itself, this form occupies the liminal—rooted firmly in the physical world while oriented toward the silent, the nocturnal, and the intuitive. The strength lies not in force, but in steadiness; not in flight, but in what makes flight possible.

In returning to the barn owl, I don’t feel like I’m repeating myself. I feel like I’m circling something ancient—something that keeps revealing itself slowly, layer by layer. Perhaps that is the nature of Anima itself: not something to be solved, but something to be approached with patience, weight, and listening.

Learning to See for Yourself

David Hockney once said in an interview:

“I think a lot of people would like to be artists. What you’re doing is interpreting life. You’re interpreting your experience, and it’s a privilege in a sense to be able to do that.”

I believe this is profoundly true. Awakening to the ability to see the world — and then recreate that reality through your own hands — is a gift worth cherishing. There is so much in this life that needs to be learned, taught, and passed along, and each of us does this in a way as unique as our own personality. The way you see is not a flaw. It is perfect in its own way.

Anyone who has spent time in an art class knows this instinctively. Place a group of people in front of the same reference image, give them the same medium, and ask them to copy what they see. The results will always be wonderfully different. Yes, skill levels vary — but that’s not the point. What matters is that each person is learning how they observe, interpret, and project what they see. Every attempt deepens perception. Every repetition refines understanding. Growth happens not through imitation alone, but through honest self-reflection layered into the process.

What troubles me about much of contemporary art culture — especially in art schools and viral platforms — is the growing admiration for what I’d call effortless spectacle. Work that requires little time, little discipline, and little practical investment, yet thrives on flashy presentation and algorithmic manipulation. Attention becomes currency. Funding follows clicks. Eventually, the work itself becomes secondary to the performance around it.

At some point, it no longer matters whether the artist has depth or skill — only that they appear important. Prices inflate like speculative assets, untethered from meaning, until repetition alone cements their place in textbooks. The system validates itself.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: sometimes we need to call it out.

If a piece of art doesn’t resonate after an honest, patient attempt to understand it — if it fails to speak in any meaningful way — it’s possible you’re not missing something. It’s possible you’ve been duped. When art requires a tour guide, a manifesto, or relentless self-promotion just to justify its existence, it may be the surrounding noise doing the heavy lifting — not the work itself.

Your attention is valuable. You don’t owe it to the algorithm. You don’t owe it to trends. You don’t owe it to charisma, bravado, or carefully curated personas. Too often, the art becomes inseparable from the figure behind it, and the object itself loses its voice.

The antidote to this isn’t cynicism — it’s practice.

Learning to make art for yourself, in your own way, is one of the most awakening acts you can undertake. It teaches you how to see clearly. It sharpens discernment. It reconnects you to what feels honest and alive. Creating isn’t about chasing recognition — it’s about becoming the thing you once wished existed.

Learn to see for yourself.

Create for yourself.

That’s where meaning still lives.

What Pressure Reveals

Two years ago—though it feels both distant and immediate—I was home with a one-month-old daughter when a gallery asked if I could prepare three finished sculptures by May.

For many artists, that might sound manageable. For me, it was daunting.

I am not a production artist. I don’t replicate forms endlessly or work half-consciously while something hums in the background. Each piece takes time—sometimes painful time. Ideas arrive slowly, shaped by contemplation, doubt, and the need for each work to be distinct from the last. Nothing happens overnight, and when it does happen quickly, it usually hurts.

Still, I agreed.

At the time, I was working ten-hour shifts, often driving coworkers home afterward. Some nights I’d run a short loop just to clear my head, then head straight into the basement, pulling on overalls and carving until exhaustion made it unsafe to continue. This was during a two-week rotation, which meant working Saturdays as well. Sleep became a deficit. If eight hours was the goal, I was living on four to six—sometimes less.

And yet, the work I produced during that period remains among my strongest.

The Role of Pressure

Looking back, I understand why. The request from a reputable gallery, combined with the responsibility of providing for a newborn, created a pressure I couldn’t escape. Survival became motivation. The desire to be better than yesterday wasn’t philosophical—it was necessary.

That kind of pressure strips away excess. It forces clarity. It reveals what matters.

I was reminded of this recently in an entirely different context.

A Night in the Storm

After a family gathering nearly an hour and a half away, I began driving home through worsening snow squalls. Visibility dropped to nothing, then cleared just long enough to reveal another drift ahead. The road became a tunnel of white noise and instinct.

I had good tires. A solid vehicle. Music loud enough to keep me alert. There was a strange focus that set in—the kind that appears when there’s only one job: get through.

Near home, I realized I’d made a selfish mistake. My brother was still stranded nearly an hour back, stuck in the middle of nowhere as conditions worsened. Without much hesitation, I turned around.

What followed was hours of frozen wind, soaked clothing, cars abandoned in ditches, pulling strangers free, getting stuck myself, then helping coordinate a long, roundabout rescue. At one point, I rolled into a gas station with the gauge reading negative distance—somehow still moving, rationed by the hybrid system just long enough to survive the last stretch.

I was wired. Focused. All or nothing.

My sister-in-law later told me she didn’t recognize my voice when I spoke to her. That survival self had taken over.

Why This Matters to Art

As viewers, it’s easy to miss what goes into a finished work. The sweat. The exhaustion. The moments where failure feels imminent.

Van Gogh is an obvious example—not because of his suffering alone, but because his work holds both torment and grace at once. We feel it. His paintings carry the tension between despair and reverence for life, fused into something enduring.

I believe that kind of intensity—whether born of necessity, responsibility, or sheer will—brings us closer to our core selves. When an artist works from that place, something transfers through the medium. Not consciously. Not deliberately. But unmistakably.

What Endures

Sometimes, it’s the need to overcome—regardless of circumstance—that deepens the value of the work. Not because suffering is noble, but because pressure reveals truth. It strips away pretension and leaves only what’s essential.

When that drive finds its way into the work, it gives the piece a pulse. A weight. A presence.

And perhaps that’s what we respond to most—not perfection, but the quiet evidence that someone pushed through something real to bring it into being.