Mario & Son Season 1, Episode 3
Ep 3: The NYC wall project is finally complete and loaded up for installation in New York, Joey discusses a special award for The Natural Stone Institute Gary Sinise Foundation.
Mario & Son Season 1, Episode 2
Ep 2: The NYC wall project continues, Soulmates gets a closer look, and Joey discusses the power of technology and people combined.
Incredible India
“Under the gaze of the angels, a spectacle like he’s never seen. Spinning lights and faces, demon music and gypsy queens.” -N. Peart, from “Carnies” “Life will be so boring when I get home” I thought to myself after spending nearly a month immersed in the craziness of India, an experience that is the polar opposite…
One thing leads to another
There was a story on the news a while back about some guy taking a baseball bat to Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral in downtown Spokane. The perpetrator singled out a hundred year old Italian bas-relief carving of the Last Supper, making the historic work of marble his personal piñata. After shaking my head, and…
Doing more than just countertops
Choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don’t need.” -Auguste Rodin My latest sculpture, titled “Aura”, began as a small metal ribbon that I bent and twisted into an asymmetrical, yet visually balanced shape. Easy enough, right? I spent a surprisingly great deal of time getting it just right. A lot of…
Dirty Angel
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free…” -Michelangelo On the Gonzaga campus, there sits a lonely angel, offering holy water at the entrance of St. Aloysius cathedral. A hundred years of dipping fingers in the water, leaving behind dirt, oil, hand lotions and the like, contaminating the old,…
Scuola del Marmo
These days, young people entering the workforce generally seem to gravitate towards technology driven jobs, as opposed to careers in the trades. Although this seems to be the case abroad as well, I am happy to report that teaching traditional craftsmanship is alive and well at the Brenzoni Scuola del Marmo (school of marble) among…
How to be a better customer
A better customer? Sounds like a harsh statement, doesn’t it? After all, isn’t it up to the company to try to be better for you? Well yes, but why not give yourself some advantages that will ensure the most success with your natural stone project. On websites and on the internet in general, you’ll find many lists…
Turning flat things into round things
Making radius countertops for most stone fabricators is simple enough, but things get a little more labor intensive when forming mitered, bowed front edges, essentially creating the illusion of a solid curved piece of stone out of thin, flat material. So, starting with a slab of 3/4″ travertine, we began our usual process by photographing…
A special Christmas ornament
With the Christmas season upon us, I’d like to share something a little unusual. So, let’s make something… The way we cut stone is either with diamond tipped blades, or by abrasive waterjet, with the waterjet being the more interesting of the two methods. Allow me to demonstrate: An abrasive waterjet is pretty straight forward….