Carving Stone

"As I would discover myself, stone carving is demanding work. In the initial stages of a new marble sculpture, it is aggressive and violent. Stone does not give way to a caress. The stone yields with a shudder that echoes through the bones of the body, which are themselves stone, constructed from the same calcium as the marble. At the end of the day the hands are crabbed, the joints swollen, the spine crooked and stiff. There is little more primitive than this struggle of flesh wielding tools against stone, and the pains that come with creative demolition."

- Tom Paine, "Me & Michelangelo"