Stories in Stone
BY VIRGINIA L. CLARK & Photos by Montanna Binder
Creating an image out of stone is magical — the grit gets into your soul and won’t let go. In fact, says longtime Taos stone carver TJ Mabrey, “stone sculptors not only have the grit to persevere, but they also bring the grit home with them after work. Literally! It’s grit in their shoes, in their hair, and in the cuffs of their jeans. We seldom get away from it. Metaphorically, it’s the grit in the oyster that turns to beauty!”
Creating an image out of stone is magical — the grit gets into your soul and won’t let go. In fact, says longtime Taos stone carver TJ Mabrey, “stone sculptors not only have the grit to persevere, but they also bring the grit home with them after work. Literally! It’s grit in their shoes, in their hair, and in the cuffs of their jeans. We seldom get away from it. Metaphorically, it’s the grit in the oyster that turns to beauty!” Mabrey says it’s addicting. “You just keep working the stone, trying to get it out of your system” — something she’s been working on all over the globe. From Oklahoma, to Panama, to Pietrasanta marble quarries in Italy, to Singapore, Cairo, and more, Mabrey finally settled in 1979 on Michelangelo and marble —which captivates her still — but she has some difficulty explaining the illusory yet powerful production with stone.
“To talk about myself is harder than the stone I carve,” she says in a recent email. “But what I carve is no doubt the best thing I can say which represents who I am. The sculptures I, and my fellow stone carvers, create must be seen and felt to be understood.” Therefore, the exhibit, “Stone Sculptors in the Landscape 2024” is a show that could just as well be titled “Stone Stories in the Landscape”!
Mabrey’s been opening the doors of her marble carving studio in Taos to the public for the past six years. In 2023, she invited seven other stone sculptors to exhibit in the landscape at her Santiago Studio and Gallery. Encouraged by how well it was received last year, she is hosting a second outdoor sculpture exhibit this October.
She feels this landscape exhibit of sculpture is a gift to these outstanding sculptors, all but two of whom are of Taos. There is little or no exhibit space for sculpture these days, something she disputes and addresses in earnest.
“Each of these sculptors has a story waiting to be told,” Mabrey continues. “We are human beings wishing to be understood in a world with meaning. We look for beauty. We make things. We put things together — to touch, to view, sometimes to eat. We are sensate. We believe art is a verb. Art and life to us are the same thing. There is always a story to be told. Stone sculptors write them in stone.”
Participating sculptor Luke Leone says stonework is godlike. “Every grain of knowable sensation is active with creative spirit … To be primates working stone is to be gods shaping life.”
Perusing Mabrey’s sculpture studio means looking and touching the big soft stonework on exhibit or being worked on. Inside and out, the stone beckons and rewards the viewer with a gentleness that belies the stone, a mirror opposite of her own soft southern drawl overlaying a steeliness of resolve ultimately revealed in her stone work.
In exuberant press about the exhibit, Mabrey says “Discover the creative work by sculptors who live, work, teach, exhibit and contribute to the vibrant activity recently seen in the stone-carving community of Taos and environs.”
This year’s sculptors are Brian Barreto, Schuyler Blanchard, Britt Brown, Petro Hul, Daisuke Kiyomiya, Luke Leone, TJ Mabrey, Sarah “Rosie” Rosenthal, Mark Saxe, and Margaret Tange.
Mabrey says she strives through her stone sculpture “to make the point that nature and humans are the same. To destroy one is to destroy the other … Art is given freedom — as are dreams, religion and the like — the freedom to distance itself from logic, much as Zen Buddhism invites us to return to prelinguistic consciousness where there is no ‘I’ separate from ‘the other’.” Dive into this magical exhibit or stop by Mabrey’s sculpture studio any day of the year (email to set up an appointment) — you’ll never be the same.
For more information, see tjmabrey.com
