FLEUR-DE-LYS - 'Three Petals' Sculpture

"I never felt like I had any special talents, especially in drawing and painting. I consider people who can do that to be artists, but I’m a craftsman. To me, an artist is someone who has a natural talent. I have a learned talent. Hard work taught me how to see, especially negative space, which helped me immensely with my sculpture. I express my vision by pushing the stone as far as it can go." -T Barny Creating sculpture takes patience. Creating Calcite sculpture takes extraordinary patience. Working with Calcite is a different experience than working with marble or granite. Like the grain pattern in a piece of wood, marble has a bedding plane. When I carve marble, I use the bedding plane as a map for where and how I will make my cuts. Calcite is formed from crystals, so it has a ‘chaotic’ grain. When I carve Calcite I jump into a tangled pattern of stone. I use a number of different diamond saws to create my shapes out of the Calcite. I can’t use the traditional hammer & chisel because the impact of those blows would fracture the stone. When I do use an air hammer it is with extreme precision. Once the basic shape is roughed out, I use a wide variety of air & electric powered sanders to fashion the piece into its final form. Calcite requires a tremendous amount of grinding. I take my pieces so thin that I have to study all the different planes. I work with many different sanders, depending on the thickness and type of edge. With Calcite, I always look for ways to remove the stone without stressing the crystals. Finishing a Calcite piece is also unique. A traditional T Barny piece is polished to a fine glass-like finish. The light reflects off that surface to give the marble a sparkle. Contrarily, Calcite pieces are finished by using muratic acid to open the crystals. With Calcite, I am trying to bring the light into the piece to make the pattern of crystals glow. Then the light emerges in various hues of honey gold.