At an early age I discovered my love for stone. My sisters would always coax me into going to look for "lucky stones" in our driveway, and my collection started when I ended up having a more diverse multitude than they did. My artistic ways have been carried throughout my entire life, held high on a pedestal. During middle school I was introduced to perspective drawing and drafting which began my
interest into three dimensional art forms. I distinctly remember as a child walking the grounds of the local museum and being in great awe of the statues that were scattered around the area. In high school, during art class we were assigned to carve something out of plaster while leaving four of the sides intact, and in the center of the piece I carved an owl that won awards at multiple art shows, and thus began my love for carving. I then went to vocational school to become a commercial artist, where in my class I was the top ranked student and was chosen out of everyone to go to the state competition. Even though I loved the class the school did not tell us that commercial art was a dying job and after school I found it hard to find any sort of employment due to technology being able to accomplish most of it. Military was my option at the time and then afterward I went from job to job, until in 1997 I found my golden opportunity in the form of a help wanted ad in the newspaper, specifically looking for someone who wished to work with stone. After sitting in the office of the stone shop and being handed an application, I began filling it out when a very large old man walked in and sat down across from me. After awhile it seemed, I noticed him staring at me almost as if looking over fresh produce to find the perfect one, and as soon as my eyes caught his, he asked "Why in the world do you want to work with stone?" so I replied "I've always loved stone, and this will give me the opportunity to try working at something I love, plus I always enjoy learning new things." A week went by and then I received a call from the man, his name was Mike Hardy, and I got the job at Medina Cut Stone. Little did I know over the next sixteen years I would come to have this master as my personal mentor, for during our time together he taught me everything I know about the stone. While in training under Mike, he would tell me about all the different types of stone, and the applications of each, and different secrets about them, what to find and how to find it, where to look for flaws and how to correct them, basically he taught me how to read the stone, almost as if it were a book. He would have me take on harder and harder jobs, continuously testing my abilities until one day he asked me to carve something for him personally, an address stone, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. So he then showed me my flaws and how to correct them and then had me take on a sign and a full fireplace, where I became comfortable with the chisels I used on a daily basis. One day while having a little down time, I began to carve faces into some feather rock that was lying around the shop being useless, (feather rock is a stone that doesn't take kindly to detail-work) the faces were okay, nothing to special at the time, but would later be my inspiration to continue down an artistic path. Hardy had us do an entryway that was twelve foot high and eight foot wide with columns and an arch, it wasn't too difficult but it made me apply a lot of the things Mike had taught me about how the stone acts under pressure, and how to apply the pressure safely. Next I personally undertook a job for my son, who was selected to be an ambassador for the government and travel around Europe with the People to People program, the thing was he needed to raise enough money to pay for the trip. So I crafted a limestone bench with Celtic designs and raffled it off to make the money he needed. Around two years later, Mike stared to get sick and often seemed weary around the shop, we all tried to be cheery since we knew old age was coming to get him, but none of us could, so one day I was in the yard and was gazing over our scrap stone and decided I’d make my own Happy Thoughts in an attempt to cheer everyone up, and thus Happy Thoughts was carved. After seeing my true ability come to light and experiencing the sadness of Mr. Hardy's passing I decided to become more artistic and began to venture my abilities into making two dimensional figures in darkened stone pop, and seemingly explode out of them, and with the shop finally closing after sixteen years into it I decided to create my own personal address stone, The Sun. Now I am a freelance artist and stone carver, up for hire with one call or email, I can guarantee that you will love the work done, no matter the job, although I do specialize in pet memorials, address stones, and my own personal artwork, I am up for almost any job.
