Well, I had come across a hefty chunk of pinkish alabaster in an art store one day and decided to see if I had any Michelangelo in me. I then bought a set of stone carving tools. I had imagined that the blunt 2 pound hammer would be perfect for smashing the stone to pieces if I screwed it up.
Now, here's the fun part about being an artist... It's the thrill that comes from diving into a project without any particular plan but knowing that ideas will soon pop up, evolve into a design and eventually coalesce into some kind of creation.
The next thing I knew I was chiseling out some kind of baby dinosaur... or a young, beaked dragon. As a softer stone, alabaster would be easier to shape than, say, granite. The more I chipped away under his neck the more apprehensive I became that one improper smack of the hammer would crack off the entire head. I was nervous, but thought I'd have an inner sense about when to stop the chiseling and begin the sanding. Getting into a rhythm of chipping, I eventually got to a point where I felt I should cut back on the hammer and chisel, but not far enough into it to start sanding. And so I hesitated, and the little dragon just sat in a corner of my studio waiting to be finished. Actually, I've grown fond of him this way... like an ancient fossil, petrified in a half-deteriorated state. He eventually got wrapped in a blanket and put in storage when I moved to Hawaii. That was 15 years ago.
