Michael Binkley Abstract Sculpture in Brazilian Granite

For the month of September 2008, Michelle and I were in Pietrasanta, Italy. I was working at Studio SEM, partially carving several marble sculptures which we had shipped back to Vancouver so I could finish them in my own studio. At the end of our stay, we filled a shipping container with these crated sculptures as well as raw marble blocks and other assorted stone.

One of these was a beautiful large piece of granite from Brazil that was blue and reminded us of our deep blue Canadian sodalite. We had hoped to entice one of our Vancouver sodalite collectors to commission something from the whole piece of stone, but he declined. So I finally decided to break up the block into smaller pieces.

The first sculpture I have carved from this stone is an abstract, titled “The Surprise”. It is comprised of two similar shaped forms that are mirror images and one is slightly smaller than the other. The shapes are organic, resembling pitcher plant flowers and they lean away from each other as if they are startled to see each other. I’ve polished the surface of each form to a high gloss so that the blue, black and white colours in the granite are best displayed. Granite is one of the hardest stones to carve, so this piece was quite labour intensive to work. I mounted the two forms on a white marble base.