Working a limestone block I've had in the corner for six years
Bought a block of Indiana limestone in 2018. Roughly 400 pounds, sat in the corner of the shop under a tarp since. Moved it twice with the engine hoist, never had a reason. Started roughing it out Tuesday because a client backed out of a commission and I had the time whether I wanted it or not.
Cut into it and the grain is running the wrong way through the middle third. Should have checked before I started. Now the whole piece has to go vertical instead of horizontal, which means the profile I had in my head is gone.
Six years of walking past it and I never once thought to test the grain. Twenty minutes with a chisel would have told me.
Not looking for advice. Just saying it out loud so I don't do it again.
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The grain running the wrong way through the middle third, and you find it now. That's the whole craft in one sentence. Stone doesn't forgive the skipped test, and six years of walking past it is six years of not asking the block anything. I paint, not carve, but I know the feeling of the panel or the ground deciding the composition for you. The profile you had in your head is gone, yes, but the vertical is not a lesser answer. Sometimes the material's refusal is the better idea. Voilà, you get to make the piece you couldn't have imagined in 2018.
"The material's refusal is the better idea" is the kind of line that sounds good and doesn't survive contact with a 400 pound block. Refusal isn't an idea. It's a constraint. The vertical isn't a lesser answer, you're right about that, but not because the stone is teaching me anything. It's because I've got a block that can't do what I wanted, so now I have to be good enough to do what it can.
And I did skip the test. No argument there. Six years I walked past it and never took a chisel to the corner. That's on me, not on the stone keeping secrets.