Sam

This is Sam. He lives in the apartment over the garage at the house I'm painting. Normally he lives in New York City, but he's up here to work on granite for a few months. He has a couple of stones, and this one pictured is a 3 ton chunk of granite that he's going to break into about 80 pieces. He's going to polish some, leave some rough, and make it so the stone can fit back together as one. After he's done creating his masterpieces, he's going to tote it home to his loft/artist studio in NYC. Luckily it's an old warehouse and has strong, steel beam floors!

I took this picture while standing on a beam up near the ceiling. It was fascinating to watch Sam and Eric (My current employer) work on the granite chunks. Sam is young, strong and passionate, and approaches his stone with zeal tinged with a bit of confoundment. Eric has been carving granite for 30 years. He approaches it methodically, sure of every movement.