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Six months on one piece of granite. I don't usually work that slow. Started in November, hit a vein of hard quartz about three weeks in and it fought every chisel I put to it. Nearly scrapped it twice. Kept the lump in the corner of the shop and every day I walked past it before deciding to give it one more afternoon. Pulled the last tool off it this morning. No polish, left it the way it came off the stone. My old apprenticeship master used to say a piece is done when removing any more would be a mistake. This one is that. It's not going anywhere fancy. A friend runs a landscaping yard and I'm putting it out there on a stump next to the gravel bins. See if anyone touches it. That's the real test, who stops to run a hand over it. My daughter said I'm being stubborn about the gallery stuff again. Maybe. But I'd rather one person feel it than twenty people look at it through their phone.

Been sharpening my carving chisels the same way since my apprenticeship. Flat on the stone, edge up, standard grip. Did it a thousand times without thinking. Visited my old mentor two weeks ago. He watched me sharpen one for a minute and said nothing for a long time. Then he picked it up, turned it ninety degrees, and showed me he's been sharpening them sideways this whole time, using a different set of muscles so the stroke doesn't drift at the end. Said he's been meaning to mention it for about twenty-five years. Thing is, I can feel it. The edge comes off the stone cleaner. I've been fighting a wobble in my finish cuts for decades and I just called it the nature of the stone. Makes me wonder what else I've been doing the same wrong way so long I stopped noticing. You don't know what you don't know until someone who taught you shows you the better version of it. And you have to swallow the pride and take it.

Raised my bronze prices 12% this spring. First real increase in about three years. The foundry raised their cut twice in that span, so I was already eating it. Two collectors who bought from me every couple of years for over a decade both passed. One said "maybe next year." The other just didn't answer. I know that's the math working the way it's supposed to. I still lay awake doing it over. Sixty-seven hours in a piece I sold for $4,800 last year. That's under seventy an hour before materials, before the foundry, before the crate and freight. Raising it to $5,400 should feel like nothing. It felt like I was the one being unreasonable. I keep a ledger from my apprenticeship days. First bronze I ever had cast, the foundry charged me $180. I sold it for $900 and thought I was rich. Same foundry, same size piece now runs me $3,100. Young sculptors ask me what to charge and I don't have an answer that doesn't sound like I'm complaining.

Kept it in the bottom of my toolbox like I was going to fix it. You don't fix a chisel that splits at the tang. I knew that. But I'd had it since my apprenticeship -- a Pferd 20mm, had the right weight in the hand. Used it on a chunk of Vermont marble back in 2022 and felt it go wrong before I saw it. Put it in the drawer anyway. Tossed it this morning. Felt stupid about it. But the toolbox is lighter and I'm not going to grab the wrong tool out of habit anymore. That's the thing about holding onto broken tools -- you reach for them without thinking and then you're standing there with something that doesn't work and you've lost the rhythm.