Last-minute spots open at Carving Studio workshop has a few spots left
Toolbox
By STEPHANIE M. PETERS STAFF WRITER - Published: July 3, 2009
When the Stone Bench Project began in 2004, it was a way to help teenagers in the mountain villages surrounding Ayacucho, Peru, attain carving skills that could help them earn a living as artists.
For a lucky few students, the program also includes a trip to Vermont to participate in a similar, week-long course for American students, taught by the same instructor, at the Carving Studio and Sculpture Center.
This year, however, the two Peruvian students selected to make the trip to West Rutland were granted visas, only to have them rescinded the next day.
"I'm disappointed," said Carol Driscoll, executive director of the Carving Studio. "I wanted to have that cultural exchange between the teenagers."
The change in plans has left a few last-minute openings in the Carving Studio's five-day workshop set to begin Monday, according to Driscoll. To fill them, the Carving Studio has reopened the free course to area youth ages 14 to 18.
The class, which is limited to 10 students, will be taught by Argentinian sculptor Nora Valdez, according to Driscoll.
In the workshop, students will spend the week learning traditional carving skills and techniques while creating a stone bench that will likely be displayed as public art somewhere in the community. And although the course will take place in the marble valley, students will hone their skills on slabs of limestone, Driscoll said.
By working with softer stone and hand tools like chisels and hammers rather than power tools or automatic hammers, students learn the "discipline you want them to have from the beginning," she said. Participants can also expect to learn lettering, architectural and sculptural stone working, as well as some basics of the industrial history of the Marble Valley.
The program in Ayacucho, Peru's, "City of Arts," was similarly modeled, according to Carlos Borrien, a Wellesley College professor and Carving Studio instructor who taught the month-long workshop in Peru in its first year.
"There's a learning curve on how to carve stone," he said. "The children, they were all doing it for the first time ... we would even work on Saturdays to achieve as much as possible."
Although the Carving Studio's class will be done in a more condensed time frame, Driscoll said the program is still in a trial stage and she hopes that in the coming years it can be expanded, possibly by grant support, to include more students and projects.
To apply for the workshop, those interested must submit a paragraph essay to the Carving Studio in the next few days explaining how the experience would benefit them.
"Nothing too heady," Driscoll said. "It's not that they even have to have an interest in art, it's more just why they might be interested in this program. We're not trying to make artists out of anybody, but the exposure starts to open a line of inquiry they may not have had before."
Applicants can mail their essays to Carving Studio and Sculpture Center; PO Box 495, 636 Marble Street; West Rutland, VT 05777 or email to info@carvingstudio.org.
For more information, call the Carving Studio at 438-2097.
stephanie.peters@rutlandherald.com
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