Wood. Bronze. Stone.
Trinity of sun, fire and earth,
I hold them in my hands
and feel the shape of light and
dark, a memory of the minerals,
smoothing the eons of time.
It’s easy to inflate the hours
of hammering, rasping, sanding,
polishing, and feeling for clues
to the secret of the stone.
It’s easy to forget the arrogance
of altering times with these tools
that pound, carve and scrape
at the long years of light
and water and earth
It’s easy to forget your own death
when you conceal mortality
in the stillness of wood,
bronze, stone
It’s easy to forget
but forgetting
is how art begins.
-Jeff Arnett
Sculpture Artist Jeff Arnett works with stone in his Santa Cruz home art studio.
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Many limestones are composed of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. Limestone has numerous uses: as a building material, as aggregate for the base of roads, as white pigment or filler in products such as toothpaste or paints, and as a chemical feedstock. More about limestone.
Marble
Marble is a non-foliated metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone.
Marble is a rock resulting from the metamorphism of sedimentary carbonate rocks, most commonly limestone or dolomite rock. Metamorphism causes variable recrystallization of the original carbonate mineral grains. The resulting marble rock is typically composed of an interlocking mosaic of carbonate crystals. Primary sedimentary textures and structures of the original carbonate rock (protolith) have typically been modified or destroyed.
Pure white marble is the result of the metamorphism of a very pure limestone or dolomite protolith. The characteristic swirls and veins of many colored marble varieties are usually due to various mineral impurities such as clay, silt, sand, iron oxides, or chert that were originally present as grains or layers in the limestone.
Gypsum Alabaster
When the term "alabaster" is used without any qualification, it means a fine-grained variety of gypsum. This mineral, or alabaster proper, occurs in England. The early use of alabaster for vessels dedicated for use in the cult of the deity Bast in the culture of the Ancient Egyptians is well documented, however, thousands of gypsum alabaster artifacts dating to the late 4th millennium BC also have been.
Calcite Alabaster
This substance, the "alabaster" of the Ancient Egyptians and Bible, often is called Oriental alabaster, since the early examples came from the Far East. The "Oriental" alabaster was highly esteemed for making small perfume bottles or ointment vases called alabastra, the vessel name has been suggested as a possible source of the mineral name. In Egypt craftsmen used alabaster for canopic jars and various other sacred and sepulchral objects.
Calcite alabaster is found as either a stalagmitic deposit, from the floor and walls of limestone caverns, or as a kind of travertine, similarly deposited in springs of calcareous water. Its deposition in successive layers gives rise to the banded appearance that the marble often shows on cross-section, whence it is known as onyx-marble or alabaster-onyx, or sometimes simply as onyx.
Alabaster
Alabaster is a name applied to varieties of two distinct minerals, when used as a material: gypsum (a hydrous sulfate of calcium) and calcite (a carbonate of calcium). The latter is the alabaster of the present day; generally, the former is the alabaster of the ancients. Both are easy to work, with an attractive appearance and have been used for making a variety of artworks and objects, especially small carvings.
Due to the characteristic color of white alabaster, the term has entered the vernacular as a metonym for white things, particularly "alabaster skin," which means very light and quite transparent, and possibly derives from the use of alabaster for tomb effigies.