Hand Carved Marble Bowls: Meet the Stars of THE COLLECTION SERIES

Posted on November 6, 2024March 2, 2026 by Martin Cooney, Stone Sculptor

Once in a Lifetime, Perhaps, A Person is Lucky Enough to Discover Something Utterly Unique. And For Me, It All Began on The Day I Carved Adam, My First Thin-Walled Marble Bowl

It was back in 2012, as I was carving my first COLLECTION SERIES, aptly titled The Maiden Collection, when, having already created a piece that challenged my abilities in the shape of an as yet unmaned bowl, I took a good, long look at it and thought why not? Why not do the unthinkable and carve the piece even thinner, and thinner, and thinner still, until, when I finally stood back and looked at what remained, I was astonished to see a bowl so very light, so very thin, and so very unique – a first perhaps ever to have been carved – that I immediately christened the piece, Adam.

Adam, The Maiden Collection, Colorado Yule Marble Sculpture by Martin Cooney

Now, perhaps I am misguided, and such bowls proliferate various parts of the world, and I am just ignorant of their existence, but if they do then I have not encountered any of them. Nor aparently, I might add, has anyone else, as I am prone to ask any and everyone who sees, touches and feels them (as I strongly encourage people to do), if they themselves have encountered such bowls before. To date, the likes of my unique Hand Carved Marble Bowls – they have never seen before. And there is a very good reason for this, as I possess a set of skills and wealth of experience that, when combined with the technology available to stone carvers today, allow me to treat stone, and particularly marble, in a manner that would be unthinkable to many previous generations of sculptors. To the point that, with the tools at my disposal, and the countless hours I have been able to devote to honing the technique I utilize with angle grinders, diamond blades, spinner pads, semi-flexible silicon carbide discs, tungsten tipped air chisels and the like, propels me into a world of possibilities that were simply not available, or quite possibly, unimaginable to stone sculptors of old. They certainly would not have been able to attain the exquisite thinness of the bowl’s walls without the impact-free cutting ability afforded by the flat cutter’s diamond blades, and the wicking away abilities of the spinner pads, and more importantly the flexibility of silicon carbide pads – as chisels alone would simply destroy the wafer-thin walls as surely as hitting them with a mallet.

You see, I have a quite peculiar and fairly unique background when it comes to professionally carving stone, for I am no self-taught experimenter, but first and formost a graduate in Banker Masonry at The City of Bath College, a course I commenced under exceptional circumstances in January of 2000. The course actually started in September, but that’s another story. And during the two years of instruction, I learned to carve complex and advanced masonry with the use of traditional hand tools… only. However, in the following two years I worked as a commercial Banker Mason for Bath Stone, where I carved, mainly by hand, masonry for the new Roman Bath extension, and then Pheonix Masonry, where I was introduced to the full electric arsenal, including flat (or flush, as they are known in the USA) cutters, and this was to change everything.

Please click on a photo to enlarge and enter a slideshow.

'Mother of Pearl' Bowl, with the sculptor in the workshop, Collection Series Marble Sculpture by Martin Cooney.

'Swan Wave' Bowl, carving process, workshop, Collection Series Marble Sculpture by Martin Cooney.

To cut a long story short, by 2004 I opened my own stone carving business in Woody Creek, just outside Aspen, Colorado, and during this time took on larger and larger projects working with nearby Pine’s Stone, supplying them with finished masonry – fireplaces, signage, architectural ‘trim’ for residential and commercial projects – as well as bidding, carving and delivering private commissions throughout the Roaring Fork Valley and beyond.

And as my confidence grew and my experience increased, I grew to challenge myself with evermore complex and challenging projects, which in 2012 lead to my splitting and carving The Maiden Collection, and in doing so revealing Adam to my quite disbelieving eyes. I had never imagined that marble could be carved to such proportions, let alone reveal such astonishing properties, hues, markings, shades and colors that I could never have imagined. And so it was this particular skill set, learned by countless hours of experimentation built upon the lengthy experience as a professional stone carver, that lead the way to my miraculous discovery of my signature ‘wafer thin’ Hand Carved Marble Bowls – that you are about to see for yourself as we scroll down. Although, please bear in mind that seeing them in photos pales in comparison to seeing, touching and feeling them for yourself, as many people tell me when they actually get to do so.

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Also, bear in mind too that my workshop in Woody Creek sat just an hour’s drive from the Yule Marble Quarry, and so I greatly benefitted from a healthy supply of available ‘Contact ‘Metamorphosized’ marble of quite extraordinary quality – of which you can read plenty about if you head up to the banner at the top of the page and choose from the various tabs. Its remarkable history alone is worth discovering, as is its superb ‘unsurpassed’ quality. So good was it that it served as the building stone of the Lincoln Memorial, and indeed … many of the COLLECTION SERIES Marble Sculptures were carved from blocks that were cast aside in the rush to produce so many tons of huge blocks 32 ton blocks that made up the ‘drums’ that formed the distinctive massive columns that made up the first authentic, load bearing marble, Greek Temple in two and a half thousand years. But I digress.

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And so, to get back to the story of my signature Hand Carved Marble Bowls. With Adam now under my belt and looking swell, it must be said, I turned my attention to the other unnamed bowl that accompanied it and set too giving it the treatment too. The Result? Eve, of course. And what a beauty she proved to be, with her provocative low-cut dip, flamboyant markings and moody hues. In fact, the moment I set them side-by-side I knew I was onto something – something very big indeed.

Eve, The Maiden Collection

Never in my life did I imagine that I could carve stone so sublimely thin, and yet have it hold up so robustly. People often remark that it looks very thin (correct), and a bit fragile (definitely incorrect), for marble, particularly this Colorado Yule marble is pretty tough indeed – a process of Contact as opposed to Regional Metamorphism. You can learn more about that by clicking on a tab in the header, but believe me, tender they may look, but on a couple of occasions they have unfortunately collided with one thing or another, including each other at times, and they simply bounce off. Of course, I wouldn’t recommend anyone try this experiment with a bowl that they own, simply rest assured, they are way tougher than they look.

Each COLLECTION SERIES Marble Sculpture, including of course bowls, carries my mark carved into the underside of the base, along with its official Serial Number, and each carving commands its own webpage right here at martincooney.com, as you will discover if you scroll up to the header and click on a few Collection Series related tabs.

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at all my COLLECTION SERIES Marble Bowls, and see what you think of them. And please, ask yourself this; have you ever seen their like before?

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Click on an image to enlarge, and click on the name to visit the bowl’s home page..