We sold our home to focus on traditional marble carving | Lessons from artistry and rural life
516 Video Views·Oct 15, 2022
As a traditional sculptor, I have sculpted clay figures for many years. Now, we chose to leave our life in California behind, moved on a ranch, and now carve in marble.
My first piece of marble carving and why I love country living.
Autumn in the American Southwest. It has been a year of big change. In January, my husband,
Joshua, and I left our home in California and moved on a ranch on the Colorado high plateau,
nestled at the foothills of Mesa Verde National Park, home to the many archaeological sites of
the ancient Pueblan people. It is sacred land. Living here, I get to learn more about its beauty
as the seasons change in color. Yet it is not why we came here, but to follow a dream we both share,
to carve in marble. My name is Johanna Schweiger. I was born in Salzburg, Austria,
and I have been a sculptor my whole life. I followed my heart by learning a traditional
craft that seemed almost forgotten. For years, I've sculpted figures out of clay to be cast
in bronze, but what I always wanted to do was to carve stone. Sharing the same vision,
Joshua and I decided to sell our home in Southern California and follow a step closer in the
footsteps of the old masters. We were looking for land with enough space to carve and a source of
marble to create our marble carving studio. In Yule, Colorado, lies a quarry high up in the
used for monuments all over the United States. We found a perfect range with beautiful pastures
surrounded by mountains and space to grow food and keep chickens for eggs. But more importantly,
it is within driving distance of America's most beautiful marble source.
We brought large blocks of marble to our ranch and placed them at our studio.
To split the blocks into smaller sizes, we use a drill to make holes. Not just any drill,
a really big one. My dream is to carve the figures of my own design like the old masters,
so I do what I know to be true. Whoever wants to master a craft has to study mastery first.
As my first study piece, I decided to carve an Italian relief from the 18th century
in a canvas sleeve. First, I carved out the rough shapes with air hammers and different sizes of
chisels. That process took me many days, a lot of patience and caused me quite a bit of back pain.
But there is something about carving in stone that I love so much and I'm discovering I couldn't live
without it. Every day when I return to my work, I can see a new goal that needs to be achieved.
I must be present in my mind every step along the way and think ahead and when things don't
go smoothly, I need to find a solution. In the refining stages where I focus on details,
I get to experience how the beauty of the form is fully emerging in the hard stone
as I go over them with my chisel repeatedly. As I change the face of the ancient stone,
I can feel the permanence of each mark left long after I'm gone from the earth.
Throughout all these stages of roughing out the shapes to refining forms,
rasping and sanding, I feel I am refining both the rock and my inner self.