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.

What Is Worth Framing?

Recently, I found myself lightly amused—and occasionally frustrated—by the social media presence of a well-known traditional sculptor whose bronze works are widely respected. His Instagram feed frequently mocks contemporary artists who chase novelty without effort, skill, or depth—artists whose work leans more on cultivated cult followings than on craft itself.

The videos he shares are familiar: crowds gathered around vague performances, stick-figure gestures, objects waiting to fall, or a single moment of slapstick absurdity stretched thin. When it ends, applause follows—hesitant at first, then enthusiastic—less out of understanding than relief that something happened. Moments later, the performance is praised as revolutionary, though no real movement, insight, or transformation occurred.

I don’t entirely disagree with the critique. Every generation produces the occasional work that genuinely reshapes the landscape of art—but those moments are rare. Needles in haystacks. What we’re often left with instead are fleeting spectacles, destined to fade once the novelty wears off.

It reminds me of the alt-coin era in crypto: thousands of coins rising and falling without purpose or intrinsic value, built on hype rather than substance. Years from now, most will be forgotten entirely, their names rewritten out of the cultural memory along with the lessons they failed to teach.

Manufactured Meaning

For a long time, I wondered why certain figures—Pollock, Warhol, Rothko—were elevated to such mythic status. Eventually, I arrived at a less romantic conclusion. Much of modern art’s canonization was driven by cultural, political, and economic forces rather than pure artistic merit. Abstract expressionism, for example, was actively promoted as a psychological counterweight to socialism and communism—an image of unrestrained freedom.

Rothko, in particular, strikes me as less a painter of depth and more a master rhetorician—someone who could persuade you that a blank canvas held transcendent meaning, if only you were enlightened enough to feel it. And perhaps that persuasion was the work itself.

The uncomfortable truth is this: we are constantly framed into believing things are meaningful simply because we’re told they are. Put nearly anything on a wall, surround it with authority, and people will work hard to convince themselves it matters.

So What Is Worth Framing?

This is where my frustration gives way to a more important question.

What is actually worth holding our attention?

A work of art, at its best, carries light within structure. It asks something of us—not applause, not allegiance—but presence. It deserves a moment of our lives because it gives something back: insight, beauty, humility, wonder, or truth.

Too much of our attention today is siphoned away by spectacle. By artists who trade depth for fame, and sincerity for virality. Your attention is worth more than that.

Learning to See Again

The next time you walk through a gallery—or scroll past one online—pause. Don’t give yourself to the loudest work, the cleverest provocation, or the piece engineered to steal attention like a catchy commercial jingle.

Listen instead for what carries wisdom. For what holds life quietly within it.

If there is real light in a work, it won’t demand your praise. It will illuminate something inside you—and allow you to become more fully yourself, not a reflection of someone else’s performance.

Between Stone and Becoming

Much of what I write tends to circle around meaning—art as symbol, as prayer, as something larger than ourselves. But it feels right to pause and offer a more grounded update: what has been happening in the habits, worries, hopes, and small victories of this very feeble human behind the work.

Last month, I found the time and focus to finish six pieces: three inuksuks and three birds. A modest achievement by most measures, yet each piece carried my heart in its own way. Letting them go is never easy—especially when pricing them means balancing emotion with the practical need to grow. Tools must be bought. Stone must be sourced. Future projects must be funded.

And let me tell you—there is always something coming. I tend to keep a couple thousand dollars’ worth of plans quietly waiting in the wings. It sounds ambitious, perhaps even excessive, but my plans have always been taller than I am. Growth asks for that. A small heart stretches by reaching just a little further each time, taking slightly longer journeys, testing the edges of what feels possible.

Looking Ahead

One upcoming project is a Great Egret—an undertaking that excites me deeply and intimidates me just as much. Anyone familiar with the bird can imagine the challenge: long, delicate proportions, elegance in motion, all translated into alabaster. The technical demands are immense. I’ve already spent hours working through multiple 3D renders, studying anatomy and balance, refining the form before stone ever meets tool.

And honestly—that excitement is what matters most. When curiosity is alive, the work is already halfway done.

Letting Work Find Its Place

Another moment that stayed with me was delivering the recent birds and inuksuks to the gallery as promised. While there, the gallery owner shared a discreet note about the collector who had acquired my last owl—anonymous, but described as a particularly discerning and respected collector.

Art means something personal to every collector, but knowing that a thoughtful, experienced eye chose one of my works does stir a quiet pride. More than that, I felt relief. Relief knowing the piece now rests somewhere it will be cared for, highlighted, and allowed to speak for itself. That owl stayed close to me for a long time. Rarely do I finish a piece and feel no urge to change it weeks later—but that one held.

On Change and Choice

All of this led me to a reflection I’ve been carrying this past week: we are always changing, whether we notice it or not. Our minds are freer than we often believe—if only we learn how to unlock the doors we’ve built ourselves.

Fear has a way of disguising itself as practicality. It nudges us toward self-sabotage, toward small compromises that slowly dim our potential. But change is unlocked through choice. We are, each of us, the captain of our own soul—hands on the rudder, steering either toward open waters or onto the rocks of familiar, lost islands.

What we choose to do with our time today—whatever portion of it we still hold—reshapes our tomorrow. Freedom begins there. Not in grand gestures, but in choosing not to live as a slave to circumstance.

We all believe this, deep down. We know it from the inside out.

As Maximus said in Gladiator:

“What we do in life echoes in eternity.”

When the Mind Steps Aside: Discovering the Hidden Hand in Art

I believe I’ve stumbled upon something remarkable—perhaps even groundbreaking—about how we live and create with intention. It’s an insight into what happens when we trick the left brain—that logical, critical part of ourselves—into stepping aside long enough for something greater to emerge.

My high school art teacher used to say, “Let the right brain take over.” He’d crank up the music, stop teaching technical details, and just let us create. The idea was simple: music and rhythm help us shift from the analytical left hemisphere to the intuitive right. In that space, we loosen up. We begin to feel more than think.

Neurologically speaking, when the left brain quiets down, we can enter a blissful, flow-like state. But if it shuts off completely, we lose access to logic, speech, or even basic coordination. So the magic seems to live in that in-between—where intellect hums quietly in the background while intuition takes the lead.

The Experiment with My Daughter

A few days ago, I was looking at Pinterest images of polar bears before sitting down to draw with my daughter. She loves to scribble freely, without rules or expectations. Sometimes she’ll glance at her drawing and casually say, “cat,” or “bird,” and sometimes I may grasp something alike out of it.

Inspired, I decided to draw the way she does—fast, loose, without trying. About 25 seconds in, while my hand moved almost unconsciously, a polar bear’s face began to appear from the chaos of scribbles. Upside down, no less. And astonishingly, it was better—more alive—than what I could have drawn had I tried.

A few days later, I tested it again—drawing upside down this time while she watched from across the table. Again, the result was more natural, more expressive, more true.

The Great Egret Revelation

Recently, I was refining a 3D model of a Great Egret—a tall, elegant heron-like bird. I spent hours fine-tuning the proportions and details, guided by countless reference photos. Then, I put the file aside and started working on something abstract, purely for play.

And then it happened again. Out of the freeform shapes, without planning or intent, emerged the unmistakable form of a Great Egret. The likeness was uncanny—and somehow more beautiful than my deliberate, technical render.

That’s when I realized: my intellectual mind had laid the groundwork. It had studied, measured, analyzed. But it was only when I let go—when I stopped trying—that something extraordinary appeared.

The Art of Doing Without Doing

In Zen, this is known as Wu Wei (or Wei Wu Wei): doing without doing. It’s the state of effortless action, where mastery and surrender become one. The Zen archer doesn’t aim with his mind—he allows the arrow to find its target through presence.

There’s a story of a master archer who, when challenged by a student, drew his bow in complete darkness and split the back of a previous arrow. The shot was not a display of skill, but of connection—between spirit, mind, and motion.

Becoming the Instrument

In the same way, when artists let go of the ego—the “little self” that needs to control and perfect—we make space for something larger to flow through us.

Remote viewers describe a similar process: using intuition to perceive distant targets with uncanny accuracy, bypassing logic entirely. Could it be that this same something—this consciousness beyond the intellect—moves through us when we create?

Maybe true art begins where the self ends.

When we lend ourselves to something greater than our technical mind, we receive what can only be described as extraordinary. The key is learning how to let the extraordinary happen—by getting out of our own way.

Looking Up: Lessons from an Owl and the Art of Letting Go

There are times I’ve fallen in love with a sculpture as I’ve been working on it. Perhaps I’m not the only one who’s felt this way—but for me, it’s increasingly rare. The constant inner critic is always present, whispering in the background, even as the artist within searches for appreciation and gratitude in the process. At some point, those two voices—the critic and the creator—merge. And in that merging, something magical happens: flow. The careful turns careless, the mind quiets, and the stone begins to speak.

The last piece I produced began with an extraordinary reference—a young barn owl, wings slightly spread, head raised toward the sky as if watching the heavens. The posture reminded me of my daughter. That innocent, upward gaze of wonder. How often do we forget to look up as we grow older? As we stand taller, we begin to see others as peers—or worse, as competition—each of us fighting never to look up again.

But maybe looking up is exactly what we need to do more often.

Our mission, whether as artists or simply as people, is to remain teachable—to learn from something higher, to serve others as if we were entertaining the children of God. To be both young and old at once requires humility and adaptability. It calls on us to forgive, to turn the cheek, and to love even our adversaries.

When I carve an owl, I often sense that same paradox: a creature both feared and revered. Its silent watchfulness commands respect, but in its eyes I see gentleness, understanding, and beauty. In this particular owl, I saw my daughter’s spirit—bright, alert, full of promise.

So when it came time to bring the sculpture to the gallery in Niagara-on-the-Lake, it wasn’t easy. Letting go never is. Yet, I know there will be more. I will see my daughter in many future works and strive to make each piece more beautiful than the last—for love’s sake, for the art, and for whoever the piece connects with. Because in the end, we’re all connected in ways we can’t yet imagine.

When We’re Not Looking: The Quiet Birth of Beauty

As an artist, I’ve learned the hard lesson of resting recently. If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you might sense that life has been teaching me this one the hard way. My work as a sculptor can be tedious, physically demanding, and emotionally exhausting — not only because of the stone itself but because of the expectations I build in my own mind.

I used to believe these expectations were coming from clients — that they needed something perfect, flawless, and breathtaking. But I’ve come to realize that it’s us, the artists, who forge these expectations. The truth is, clients don’t always know what to expect. It’s our job to surprise them — to create something that surpasses their imagination and reshapes their sense of what’s possible.

I should repeat that: the client has to be surprised by seeing and experiencing something that surpasses their beliefs.

That’s the real beauty of visual art. It makes people believe in something new — something they didn’t know they needed until they saw it. But ironically, the most beautiful parts of creation often happen when we’re not trying to make them happen.

I’ve noticed this again and again. Sometimes the painter’s palette is more captivating than the finished painting. The unintentional blends, the stray brush marks, the stains — all hold a kind of raw beauty that feels truer than the final piece.

I even see it in my daughter. She’ll grab a handful of markers, scatter them across the page in a flurry of colour, and something magical emerges — an unexpected harmony, a rhythm that wasn’t planned but was felt.

For the professional artist, the same thing happens. You might spend days perfecting one sculpture, but the most moving moment might be the way the dust catches the light — something you never planned or noticed until you stepped away.

It reminds me of the famous double-slit experiment in quantum physics: when no one is looking, particles act like waves — infinite, fluid, and full of possibility. Maybe creation is the same. When we stop forcing it, the beauty flows.

— “Beautiful things don’t ask to be seen.” — Sean Penn in ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Maybe that’s the quiet truth behind all art — that the best things happen when we’re not looking. When we rest, when we release control, when we make space for the impossible to happen.

So if you’re an artist (or anyone chasing something meaningful), take this to heart:

Rest. Don’t rush beauty.

Let it happen in its own time.

Art as Prayer: The Spiritual Dimension of Creation

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on something deeply spiritual about art. Not that art itself is a religion, but it often feels like a bridge—connecting us to the divine presence that flows through all living things.

Vincent van Gogh, perhaps more than any other artist, embodied this idea. He once called his work a “vocation,” a kind of faith. For him, painting wasn’t just craft—it was communion. He saw the divine woven into the fabric of everyday life: the stars, the fields, the people around him. When he painted The Starry Night, it wasn’t just a landscape—it was eternity itself, a vision of his soul continuing beyond death, carried into the heavens.

“I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say: he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.” — Van Gogh

Interestingly, Van Gogh once trained to be a minister but eventually left behind the formal church. Yet his art revealed something profound—that vocation need not always come through official authority. It can be lived out through the work of our hands, through creativity, through the pursuit of truth.

Art, in many ways, is a prayer. Every sculpture, every painting, every piece is a petition—an offering of meaning from the artist to the world. Sometimes its message resonates, sometimes it’s misunderstood. But if you sit quietly with art—not just glance, but really look—something beyond the surface begins to speak. Reflection opens the door to a deeper reality.

When I create, I feel this movement. The process requires me to quiet my mind, to step beyond the old self, and commit to shaping something that feels larger than me. The hours blur together. Time disappears. What remains is not just the technical outcome of my hands, but a work that feels transcendent, as if it always existed, waiting to be revealed.

It reminds me of Jesus’ words in John 4, when he told the Samaritan woman at the well that true worship isn’t confined to a place, but happens “in spirit and in truth.” That same spirit is what I believe we invoke through art: the act of perceiving and creating with honesty, reverence, and openness to the divine.

Art, at its best, is worship. Not worship of the self, or even of the object created—but of the eternal presence that flows through all things. In that way, every true act of creation is also an act of prayer.

Chasing Ghosts: The Struggle and Truth of an Artist’s Life

A little honesty here.

As an artist, I often wrestle with the gap between the effort I pour into a sculpture and the income it brings back. The balance is rarely even. For every hour invested in a piece, there’s the weight of tools, materials, and years of skill behind it—all against a reality where profit margins sometimes point to loss rather than gain.

If you’re not an artist, perhaps it’s easier to picture another trade. Imagine being a carpenter. Your shop has to be massive. Your investment in wood is significant. Your skills take decades to sharpen. And when your work finally reaches a level of perfection, few people can truly afford it. That’s the paradox—mastery often makes the work rarer, but not always more profitable.

Yet I can’t turn away from this path. The detail of the craft pulls me in. Stone carving is an ancient art, one that carries traditions worth preserving. There’s meaning in taking something inert—stone—and giving it a form that might outlast us, transforming it into something that feels immortal.

But the pursuit isn’t easy. Striving for excellence can become a mirror, one that reflects not just our progress but also our insecurities. It’s hard not to feel burdened when the practice demands so much and rewards so little. In times like these, when it feels as if the benchmark for performance keeps climbing higher, it’s tempting to believe that some unseen hand is forcing us to chase endlessly.

This is what I think of as “chasing ghosts.” These ghosts are the illusions of perfection—false visions of what we think we should be, or what others expect us to be. But perfection is an illusion. We are all evolving, becoming truer versions of ourselves, shaped not by flawless outcomes but by persistence, honesty, and individuality.

Sometimes, simply staying true to our craft—whether it’s widely celebrated or quietly overlooked—is more meaningful than any price tag. Art is not only about success in the eyes of others; it’s about grounding ourselves in something real, something lasting.

I hope, in time, we learn to stop chasing these ghosts. To lay them to rest. And to continue forward, more true to ourselves than any imagined version of perfection could ever be.

Tracing the Heavens – An Owl in Stone

The thoughts and feelings that come with the artist’s life are important, but every so often I need to pause and reflect on the process itself—how a sculpture is actually made.

Recently, I’ve been immersed in a new piece that revealed its name to me long before I finished carving it. That’s a rare occurrence, and I take it as a sign that the motivation and meaning were already clear before the final details emerged.

The journey began about two months ago when I stumbled across a piece of stone from one of my two trusted stone dealers. It was an odd block—strangely colored with strong fracture lines running in different directions. For most carvers, that’s a definite “no.” Fractures can spell disaster, unless met with careful intention, planning, and a little luck. But I can’t resist a challenge, and I had already bought a similar stone just weeks earlier.

Around the same time, I came across a hollowed knot of cherry wood in a specialty wood shop. For $35, it seemed destined to become the base of one of my signature owls. The block sat waiting in my studio until, one day, I came across a photograph of an owl in an unusual pose—elegant, youthful, stretched upward. It reminded me of my daughter, and I knew instantly: this was the form I needed to carve.

To work out the posture, I sculpted a small plasticine model over 3.5 hours. From there, I scanned it using a lidar app on my phone and imported the model into a 3D program. Having a digital version I could rotate freely gave me a reliable reference alongside my sketches and collage of owl images.

Equipped with a new facemask, a 7” Makita grinder, fresh hand tools, and a custom carving table, I set to work in the studio. The first stage was intense—the grinder raising so much dust I could hardly see until it settled, even with my dust collection system running. Step by step, I shifted to finer burrs and cutters, slowly shaping the fragile stone into something true to the vision.

At this stage, I’m confident in the form, though there’s still a great deal of work ahead. What began as a discarded stone and a forgotten block of wood is taking shape as Tracing the Heavens—a sculpture whose name arrived before the carving was even halfway done.

I’ll share more as the owl emerges from the stone.