The Kansas Location Advantage

~ Center of the Universe ~

Carving light and mobile marble sculpture in Kansas affords one major advantage that stems from the fact that The Sunflower State sits at The Heart of America. In fact, Kansas occupies the exact geographical center of the country. Which in turn means that from here nowhere is too far to drive my Silverado, loaded with as many COLLECTION SERIES Marble Sculptures as can fit into its long bed.

~ Have Truck ~ Will Deliver ~

Pop-Up Opportunity

From the Martin Cooney STONEWORKS in Council Grove, Kansas, I can reach anywhere; from the Pacific to the Atlantic, with enough sculpture for a pop-up show that allows galleries, museums and art spaces to not only review my work and inspect the quality of workmanship, but gauge the public’s reaction to it. And if enough pieces are sold, I can leave the remainder with the firm knowledge that my work is sufficiently popular for a lasting connection to be arranged.

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Jewelry for the Home

However long you hover over the photos and try to picture these carvings in your mind’s eye, such are the subtleties imbued within my COLLECTION SERIES Marble Sculptures, they simply must be experienced in person for their true beauty to be revealed. Photographs do not and cannot capture the silky-smooth texture of their matte luster finish; the subtle opaque translucence of the Colorado Yule Marble from which they are carved; or the ease by which they are simply picked up and moved around, allowing for their placement in almost any location. Quite often the clincher to a sale happens when a customer becomes a buyer upon running their hand across the quite exquisitely smooth, cool marble surface – a connection being made at that moment that can be achieved via no other means. In fact, to feel and explore my marble sculpture by touch is vital, it is only by doing so that the true nature of the piece is revealed. No harm will occur to the carving, but a bond is then made that simply cannot thereafter be undone.

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~ Welcome to The Flint Hills of Kansas ~

~ Our Quiet Little Slice of Bliss ~

~ Ready When You Are ~

See, Touch and Feel the Work for Yourself

Although The Martin Cooney STONEWORKS may be situated in the middle of the country, it is hardly located in the middle of nowhere! Just 30 minutes up the road, American Eagle, the regional affiliate of American Airlines, delivers round-trip flights between Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), which offers around 1,900 flights per day, and Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD), one of America’s best-connected airports. American Eagle operates over 1,500 daily flights to nearly 160 cities throughout the United States, Canada, the Bahamas, Mexico, and the Caribbean on behalf of American Airlines. And so, with a little planning you could be here by midday, see the work, pick out the pieces that interest you the most, and be back home by evening … from just about anywhere in the country. We will meet you at the airport and drive you to our showroom gallery. So, no need to rent a car, and we’ll have you back in due time for your departure. However, we have excellent accommodation here in Council Grove, from hotels to guest houses to Airbnb’s. The surrounding Flint Hills countryside is really quite remarkable, with the largest Prairies grasslands remaining anywhere in the USA right here on our doorstep, and we’ll take you to see them before you leave, if you wish.

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Light, Portable and Carved for Full Immersion in the Real World

It’s a long and somewhat clumsy sentence, but I fashioned the above statement quite early in THE COLLECTION SERIES’ formation, when I needed a catchphrase with which to describe a new and evolving body of work that elevates traditional heavy and ornate marble sculpture out of the rarified palatial, formal and commercial settings, and into the homes and lives of everyday people. It is indeed light and portable, because I utilize an advanced carving technique, Ultra-Reductionism, that fashions and slims heavy rough blocks of marble into ergonomically designed sculpture that is easy to simply pick up, move around and display just about anywhere. For, my motto is: “if I can’t pick it up and walk it out of the workshop, I carry on carving until I can.”

Objects of Beauty

Within THE COLLECTION SERIES many subcategories combine to create a diverse sculpture portfolio with a wide range of appeal that attracts both interest and admiration from an equally diverse cross section of the public. Some people are drawn to the more flamboyant statement art pieces that I carved to capture and retain attention. Others feel a connection with more demure carvings that reveal their assets only upon closer inspection. However, such is the striking nature of the marble, with its seductive curves, mysterious translucence and subtle suggestive abstractions, that people of all walks of life discover their ‘favorites’, and before long have fallen for their Object of Beauty – which is how I describe and define my sculpture. And one glance at the ‘Sold’ page on martincooney.com will attest to the wide variety of sculptural styles that are now serving as strident visual focal points in homes across America.

Marble Bowls

It may come as a surprise that the humble bowl features so widely in my COLLECTION SERIES portfolio, given the image that the word “bowl” is apt to summon when used in connection to fine art marble sculpture. However, my Hand Carved Marble Bowls have become a signature feature of my work, and it would be difficult to imagine my marble sculpture without their inventive presence. Because what most people picture when a bowl is mentioned is a lathed vessel with uniform appearance and limited variety. However, my bowls defy convention in the most radical manner possible, with each one taking a unique abstract and evocative form. By definition, a bowl’s hollow interior removes a great deal of weight from the carving, allowing for a large profile to be attained with a fraction of the weight of a traditional stone sculpture. And the thin Curvilinear walls are ideal for transmitting the warm opaque translucent light from one side of the marble to illuminate the other. Also, many people prefer the more benign outline of a bowl to that of a statement piece that draws the eye and demands an explanation. To these people, who would never buy an art-for-art-sake sculpture, a clever, intriguing and expertly carved marble bowl holds much more appeal. They also function as a practical show piece with which to mound with ice and display seafood, the catch of the day, oysters, lobsters and shrimp. Or fill with a colorful display of ripe fruit, the first autumn leaves, treasured sea shells … and such.

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Tougher Than They Look

What is perhaps most remarkable about my COLLECTION SERIES Marble Sculpture is that, although at first glance it may look vulnerable, with its thin walls, lean overhangs and ambitious agility, it is indeed well able to look after itself. The heaviness of marble allows me to tuck vital counter weight to stabilize even the tipsiest looking outline. Believe me, no matter how potentially unstable some of my more ambitious carvings may look, as you will discover, they are all carved to be extremely stable and self-righting. In other words: carved for full immersion in the real world. In drawing upon my years as a banker mason carving elaborate architectural features requiring an acute understanding of structural integrity, I have attained an advanced set of skills that facilitate the production of a recognizable sculptural style, Curvilinear, that plays to the marble’s strength. Combine these physical design traits with the fact that marble is impervious to U.V. rays (so it may be placed in any sunny window), weatherproof (meaning it can thrive outdoors), it won’t rot, crack, peel or grow mold, insects won’t eat it, it won’t burn and will withstand the rigors of everyday life … and you will perhaps begin to share my excitement in my bringing the glorious properties of marble – in this case, Colorado Yule Marble, into our modern world, where it’s lightweight profile, strength and resilience makes itself very much at home.

Curvilinear Marble Sculpture

If you Google ‘Curvilinear Marble Sculpture’ you should see my work appear in both the ‘All’ and ‘Images’ tabs; it is something I am very proud about. It’s a quite revolutionary approach to marble sculpture, and to my knowledge, when I set about developing and creating my COLLECTION SERIES Marble Sculpture Portfolio, back in 2012, I wasn’t aware of anyone using this demarcation to define their work. So, it is with a great deal of satisfaction that I now see other sculptors adopting the adjective to describe their work, too.  According to Google, Curvilinear means “…something that consists of, is bounded by, or moves in a curved line… rather than straight and rigid. This complex principle of design adds both strength and beauty to the sculpture, making it far tougher and much more resilient than would otherwise be expected. Of course, not all my work is rigidly Curvilinear in form. I sometimes stray from the boundaries of flowing curves to bring some diversity to my signature sculpture collection and to import a little contrast almost to illustrate Curvilinear’s quite majestic qualities. But if I were to summon a word that most accurately captures the essence of my work, then Curvilinear would certainly summarize my chosen style.

Stunning Translucence

One remarkable aspect of carving marble so thinly – as many of my Curvilinear Sculptures are, is the fact that such thin ‘walls’ permit light to penetrate the surface and transmit an opaque vision of the stone itself upon the other side, allowing for a spectacle to be viewed that is seldom witnessed via traditional marble sculpture. Colorful hues, swirls and swaths of light gleam and illuminate the marble with every change of light. To the point that, when a Hand Carved Marble bowl, say, or similarly thin-walled sculpture is placed in a sunny window, a light show ensues that revolves around the shifting angles and dancing shadows that bring the carvings to life. It truly captures the attention and imagination of all who witness the effect … one that is very difficult, nay quite impossible, to capture on camera.

THE COLLECTION SERIES

Way back in September of 2011, when I first took to splitting and carving Colorado Yule Marble in the form of a huge slab that later went on to become The Maiden Collection – the first of four such collections, I held no preconceived ideas of what would unfold from the act, other than a hugely intimidating, well-travelled 100-year old block would then be rendered suitable for carving. The name would not arrive until sufficient sculptures materialized and announced themselves as the collectable repertoire it has become today; for with their light portability, resilient nature and ergonomic design, each of the four collections; ‘The Maiden’, ‘1314 Winter’, ‘Autumn of 14’ and my current ‘Liberty’ collection, bear the distinct traits born of the very marble from which they are carved. And recently, I have just completed my one hundredth COLLECTION SERIES Marble Sculpture; ‘My First’ one hundred, I might add! For I aim to continue the process of splitting and carving huge blocks of marble into beautiful, convenient and curvaceous “Jewelry for the Home”, well, for as long as I live. Each piece reveals its name and Serial Number, along with my signature and Mason’s Mark, carved upon the underside of the base. Plus, each COLLECTION SERIES Marble Sculpture has its own Web Page located on martincooney.com, where photos, facts, measurements, weights, carving details and background information abound. And with such simplicity of ownership, they may be displayed or easily stored upon a shelf (for the most part), that collecting these unique marble carvings is easier and far more convenient than any fine art marble sculpture has any right to be.

Colorado Yule Marble

To this point, all my COLLECTION SERIES Marble Sculptures are carved from Colorado Yule Marble – one of the finest, purest, densest and whitest marbles in the world. Discovered in 1873, Yule had a tumultuous past; rising to fame and notoriety in the early 1900’s, to the high point of being selected as the building stone of the Lincoln Memorial, and for The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, along with a great many large and prestigious projects around the nation. However, post-Word War Two, the quarry, located at 9,300 feet in the Rocky Mountains, four miles above the town of Marble, Colorado, fell into decline and neglect. Ultimately, the fates combined to close what was the largest marble processing plant of its kind in the world, for over 40 long years. These days, fortunately, the quarry is doing very well under the auspices of Red Graniti, an Italian company that brought a vast amount of financial clout, quarrying knowledge and marble industry connectivity with them, to the point that the whole operation is a flourishing success today. But it was fortunate for me that I learned of Yule Marble quite accidentally midway through my 20-year residence in The Roaring Fork Valley, near Aspen, Colorado. Quite honestly, it has changed my entire life to become an indispensable attribute in shaping my ever-evolving sculptural journey. For it is without doubt a quite remarkable carving stone, with which I am able to shape into any form I wish – any form, that is, containing the structural integrity that I learned to carve as a Banker Mason many years prior.

MARTINCOONEY.com

Finally, martincooney.com is where I live on line. Everything I do, everything I carve, every picture I take and most things that I get up to are there for all the world to see. It is home to THE COLLECTION SERIES, with a fully equipped Web Page detailing each carving’s inception; its reason for being; its size, weight and whereabouts; whether it is sold, for sale, and if so, who is selling it. However, there really is so much more than just my marble sculpture to be found in my ‘home on the internet’. There is the complete history of Colorado Yule Marble (building stone of the Lincoln Memorial), a lot of background history covering myself, my life, my wife and family, my experience as a Banker Mason and much more. You can gaze at pictures and read about the things that have conspired to make me who I am today. You can even take a trip around The North West Tuscan Way and The Aspen Marble Detour, if you wish. Or just browse through it to validate in your own mind that, when all is said and done, I am no fraud passing myself off as someone I am not. With well over 400 elaborately illustrated posts, martincooney.com would be impossible to simply create out of thin air, which, when all is said and done, is its primary goal: to validate in no uncertain manner that, yes, I am exactly who I say I am. And along the way, I hope you find your time there (or here, if you are reading this online) worthwhile, entertaining, informative, and yes … at times at least, quite fun.

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I Deliver to Any State in The Lower 48: to Galleries, Art Spaces and Collectors

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Thank you for visiting martincooney.com

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