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I carved a granite bench a few years back for a public garden. Had to source the stone from a quarry two states away, rented a flatbed to haul it, worked it on and off for two months because there were other jobs in between. Sold it for $1,200. That's maybe a dollar an hour if you count research, travel, the rental, the chisels I dulled, and the sanding pads. I knew it at the time and I still said yes. I told myself it was a "public installation" and that was worth something. But the garden closed three years later and I heard the bench got hauled away with the trash. I don't know what the right number was. Double maybe. But what I do know is I priced the materials and my time separately and left out everything else. The knowledge, the years of figuring out how to carve granite without splitting it, the fact that I knew which quarry to call. That all went for free. I still do it. Not as bad, but I still leave money on the table somewhere. Hard habit to break when you started out thinking you should be grateful anyone paid you at all.

Had a really nice piece of black granite. Perfect for the piece I'm blocking out. Decided I knew better than the stone and tried to split off a section that wasn't ready. Heard the wrong kind of crack and now I've got a 40lb bookend and a pile of gravel. The worst part is I knew better. Thirty years in and I still get impatient and waste good material. My old mentor would've just looked at it and walked away. That was his move. Didn't need to say a thing. Back to the supplier tomorrow. Hope they still have some of that batch left.

Six weeks. Forty-two days of the same three-foot block of granite refusing to split clean. I've been hitting stone for thirty-plus years and this one had my number. Every time I thought I'd found the grain, it laughed at me and went somewhere else. This morning I set up a new line of plugs and feathers. Three taps. Cleanest break I've made in years. My hands are still buzzing. The piece I wanted is sitting on the bench and the waste is on the floor where it belongs. Not everything fights back that hard. But the ones that do, those are the ones worth keeping.

Got the last of the granite for the memorial piece I'm working on. It was a beast to find the right color and veining. Took a few trips to the quarry, but this slab feels right. Now to get it back to the shop without breaking it.

There's a five-gallon bucket under my main bench that's been collecting offcuts for two years now. Granite chips, bits of alabaster, broken corners off pieces I finished or ruined. I tell myself I'll use them for something someday. Mosaic maybe. Or just crush them for texture in a base. I've never done it. I just keep dropping scraps in there and looking at it sometimes. Some habits are just habits. Not everything needs a reason. But I notice the bucket when I'm stuck on something and it's the only thing in the shop I don't have an opinion about.

Early in my career I bid a municipal project, a 10-foot eagle in granite for a courthouse plaza. I was so hungry for the job I priced it at $14,000. I spent six months on it, ate every hour of fabrication and travel and installation, and after materials and the foundry work on the base I cleared about $2,000. That's not counting the months I spent waiting for the city to pay me. I learned nothing from it because I did the same thing twice more after that. You don't learn from losing money. You learn from getting so tired of being broke that you finally stop. I still see that eagle sometimes when I drive through that town. It's a good piece. I just gave it away.

Young guy at the open studio last weekend. Watched me work a piece of limestone for maybe thirty seconds. Then he tells me he could program a CNC router to cut the same shape in twenty minutes and walk away while it ran. I asked him when was the last time he chipped a tooth on a tool grit he didn't see. When he had to look at a piece of stone for three hours before he knew what was in it. When he ruined a week of work because he hit a fissure nobody could see. He said he didn't need to do any of that because the machine did it for him. I'm not against the machines. I've used them for roughing out when it makes sense. But the way he said it, like the whole point was to not be there. Like the work was an inconvenience between him and having something to sell. Twenty minutes. I wanted to hand him the chisel and a block of granite and see how that twenty minutes felt on hour three.

Back when I was still doing a lot of fabrication work for other artists, a friend asked me to weld a gate for his backyard. Nice guy, helped me move a block of granite once. I quoted him basically materials plus a couple hundred for my time. He was happy, I felt good about it. Five years later he wanted a matching gate for the front. Expected the same price. Then his brother heard about it. Then a neighbor. Then I'm the guy who does cheap custom ironwork for an entire neighborhood and every one of them thinks I'm gouging when I finally say no. That was the last time I did a friends-and-family price on anything. Cost me more in aggravation than I ever saved in goodwill.

I've been with the same gallery since 2009. They sold my work. They took their cut. We didn't talk about it much. It worked. Got an email last week from their new director. Young guy. Said they're shifting focus to artists with "stronger direct engagement." Which means they want me to do their job for them online. I got a 400-pound granite piece in my studio right now that nobody's seen. I'm trying to figure out if I should drag it out and film myself grinding on it, or just keep working and see what happens. Neither option feels right. Anyone else getting this from their gallery lately? The "we love your work but also can you become a content creator" talk?