Have a

Happy New Year

May I take this opportunity to wish everyone reading this a truly Happy, Enjoyable, Fun and Interesting 2015

I really hope your 2014 went well and that you are as eagerly looking forward to a brand new year as am I, for while we may all celebrate a multitude of different holidays around the world (or not, as the case may be) I think it’s safe to say that most of us will be ringing in the new year in one form or another come midnight on the 31st.

A new year to me means new beginnings, new horizons, new goals and a fresh approach to, well, practically everything. 2014 taught me so much, and was a year packed with so varied an assortment of experiences that I can already feel an accelerated momentum gaining as we head into 2015.

One of the projects I have planned over the course of the coming weeks, until the great spring thaw sees work commence on my next collection of marble sculpture, is to update my travel section to accommodate the many photographs of Tuscany I never got around to posting in my Rogue Carver on the Loose in Italy series. The three months of April, May and June of this year I spent roaming the hilly region of northwestern Tuscany allowed plenty of time for exploration and as a consequence I have many as yet unreleased photographs. However, unlike the ‘dispatches’ I sent from out on the road I would like this time around to simply compile a collection of my favorite photographs from each of the cities I grew to know and greatly admire.

Over the course of three months I had cause to visit cities such as Pisa, Lucca, Pietrasanta and Viareggio a great many times over such a length of time that I came to know them to the point where many of the scenes you see demark places wherein I spent a great deal of time… my favorite places in other words, places I found myself returning to on a frequent basis.

In addition to looking back through 2014 I will betaking to the lovely powdery Rocky Mountain snow in order to Nordic Ski every inch of the 150 kilometers of groomed trail that Pitkin County can boast as being the largest in the USA (or so I have heard). Not only will I be cross-country skiing it but I’ll be bringing you a full account of my travels right here on martincooney.com

I have to say that I have really, really taken to cross-country, or Nordic, skiing. The trails around here are simply gorgeous and so beautifully maintained its unreal. Here I am gliding down the Rio Grande trail only this very afternoon. I have to say that I am very much looking forward to exploring the entire trail network and my hope is that you’ll join me as I whiz my way around our little frozen wonderland over the coming weeks.

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Looking out over the Sculpture Garden earlier this morning it was difficult even for me to realize the full extent of the changes that 2014 brought about. Back on January 2nd of this year I had still to really get my teeth into the 1314 Winter Collection, with many of the Standing Stones as yet not even a speck on the horizon.

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This may be how the scene looked this morning but a year ago it was a very different matter…

…back then I was embroiled in a what amounted to a battle with one of the fiercest blizzards of the entire winter. Never-the-less, the show would go on, no matter how deep the snow.

 

A this point (early January 2014) I already knew I had a date with Italy due to commence when my plane lifted off at the end of March, so time was very much of the essence. As it turned out the 14 sculptures were created for 1314 Winter Collection and with the dust not yet settled in the Studio Workshop I found myself catapulted across the Atlantic to begin my three month spell of what turned out to be pure unadulterated wanderlust… when ostensibly I originally went there (Pietrasanta) to carve the fabled Cararra Marble.

The place I discovered upon my arrival soon dispelled notions of carving in one of the studios and pretty soon I was off a-roaming in The Bee, my trusted rented Fiat Panda. However, as mentioned above, now that I have had time to take in the full scope and implications of my trip I would like to revisit each of the major towns that proved such a pivotal influence as I journeyed around the region. This time around I want to present each city simply as I saw it… as it presented itself to me, free of any sort of narrative. I’d like the pictures to do the talking.

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On my my return to the USA in early July I immediately set about planning and strategizing my next series of marble sculpture – the Autumn of 14 Collection. Twelve Colorado Yule Marble Sculptures were created for this my latest body of work and many of the themes, imagery and physical aspects of the dozen carvings can, in my view, be traced directly to the jolt of invigoration I received via my Three Month Tuscan Adventure.

If you follow this blog regularly I want to thank you for dropping by so frequently that each day I see people logging on from just about every corner of the world. I can’t tell you just how happy this makes me feel… thinking that martincooney.com is going out their to all those exotic locals. Thanks to all of you.

If you don’t follow this blog regularly and are wondering just what all this is about all I can say is that it is my own personal attempt to shed a little light into the life of a 21st Century stone sculptor. It is my firm belief that art, and sculpture in particular, doesn’t simply spring from nowhere, it first has to be absorbed by the life of the sculptor – what goes into (a life) simply must come out… in my case (at least these days) in the form of Curvilinear Reductionist Sculpture. This website is my attempt to explain beyond the carving process and introduce the world from which my ideas are born.

Cheers, have a very Happy and Rewarding New Year !

Martin