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I dig deep into the white plastic container that holds the moist clay and with each small handful, I gently mold the form. I add here. I remove there. Creating in clay is mesmerizing. Soothing. The clay is pliable and feels soft to the touch. I feel calm-a quiet departure from the anxiety I experience when carving stone. My eyes guide the evolution of the clay structure, carefully securing its fluidity of movement. Removing or adding clay continuously readjusts the visual calm-a visual calm that safeguards my inner calm.
There was a time when I considered myself only a stone carver. Clay was but the medium to shape a model of what I would later develop in stone. The ideas, mostly figurative and abstract in form, flowed spontaneously from my unconscious. I created stylized heads and bodies, symbolic of deep human emotion: faces, lovers, families. Over time, however, I found myself lingering with the clay model, spending most of my creative energy refining it more than necessary. The clay model became an end in itself rather than the beginning of my creative effort. I no longer experienced that same inner calm when transferring the clay model to stone and I struggled to understand why.
Unlike molding with clay in which I build up the form, with stone the form emerges out of destruction. The stone is traumatically unearthed from the quarry. Then with hammer and chisel, I tear down the raw unpolished form and transform it into a new creation. I would often see in the raw material the shape of something that I could develop; something that had the possibility to emerge. I envisaged the finished work-the