All photos appear courtesy of Alma Studio.

Many people are drawn to natural stone because of its artistic qualities and characteristics. ALMA Studio takes it to the next level.

Part art gallery and part studio, ALMA Studio uses pure light projections to uncover, accentuate, and highlight art scenes that are hidden within the natural veining of stone slabs, according to Jay Zelingold, director of ALMA Studio. Their work and vision follow the methodology developed by artist Arin Jéda.

Not having any formal art training has become an asset for Zelingold and Jéda. Zelingold believes not having that training allows them to break the mold and develop their untraditional art. “I like to say that art in its usual form is the expression of an artist’s inspiration,” Zelingold says. “ALMA is the inspiration from nature’s expression.”

Choosing the right stone is a rich and varied process for ALMA Studio. Zelingold shares that depending on the stone, they might be drawn to its veining, colors, or the strength of the material. Each slab has personality.

“It’s not just the veins and colors but also the blends of minerals that add textures and layers to the stones,” Zelingold explains. The process the team goes through to choose stones is one they’ve spent years developing and refining. Zelingold says they are still learning every time they look for and discover new materials.

Finding the Right Natural Stone

Zelingold and Jéda usually rely on a slab yard as the starting point in their search, especially ones that catalogue each slab that comes through their doors. They begin by looking for slabs that are beautiful on a surface level. The next step is to look within the veining for the hidden stories and scenes their work highlights. In order to discover these scenes, Zelingold says they must inspect hundreds of random slabs from each and every angle in the hope that at some point they will strike gold and find a hidden scene. “In order to streamline the process, instead of blindly inspecting every slab we can get our hands on, we first choose varieties with the strong potential of having hidden scenes,” he explains. “Specifically, the stones we look for are complex, with depth, dimension, and energetic movement.”

Once they choose a variety they want to work with, the next step is to request high-resolution photos of each individual slab in the company’s inventory so they can study them on either a large 4k monitor or even virtual reality (VR) goggles, which allow them to rotate and zoom in to inspect the minutia of detail within the stones.

Sometimes the natural stone features a design so vividly, there is not much more that needs to be done to elevate the vision. They once discovered a piece that has a remarkable likeness to Bob Marley in a portrait orientation with an intense expression on his face and with his hands in the perfect attitude as one would have while playing a guitar. “In this event, we don’t need any other expansions to the scene – that’s a diamond in itself!” Zelingold says.

Their hunt for beautiful slabs has led them to begin reaching out to quarries and showrooms, including Antolini and United Granite.

Bringing Natural Stone to Life

While the team works with a many different types of natural stone to create their art, there are some specific ones they’re drawn to.

“Fusion quartzite, Blue Louise granite, and Arabascato Orobico marble are great examples of styles that make us feel like kids in a candy store,” Zelingold adds. 

Like the stones they use and the artwork they create, the types of clients they serve range from individuals to institutions and commercial spaces. In the short time they’ve been selling their art, within the last 12 months they’ve sold to individuals in the United States and Middle East. Recently, they installed a large slab at a new and upscale steakhouse directly on the Jersey shore, and they’re working on several other private works as well as several high-profile public spaces. 

Zelingold and his team are always exploring new ideas and methods such as backlighting onyx and bringing animation into the installations to make them more immersive and multi-sensory.

Not all of their work is large scale. The team also creates smaller pieces with the same process. “Some of the scenes we discover encompass the entirety of the slab, while other scenes only encompass a small portion of the slab,” Zelingold notes. “In such an event, we will cut around the scene so that we are left with just the part of the slab that contains the discovered scene.”

For one piece, a scene of a bird was identified on the upper left corner of a large slab. Rather than use the entire slab, the team cut that scene out of the slab to create the artwork. 

“Our larger, full-scale slabs are a natural fit for a large public display that desires to bring a magnetic dynamic that will transform their space,” he explains. “Our smaller works are a truly profound addition to an elevated private space or collection. The integration of art, technology, and a three-dimensional piece of mother nature are virtually unsurpassed in both the art and design worlds.” Their goal is to continue to develop artwork that appeals to both homeowners as well as institutions that can incorporate larger pieces into their spaces. 

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Note: An earlier version of this article appeared in the Spring 2022 edition of Building Stone Magazine. All photos appear courtesy of Andreas Kunert and Ancient Art of Stone.

Philosophers and artists have long been fascinated by geometric forms and what gives them meaning beyond their shape. In art and nature there are aesthetically pleasing proportions found, as Michelangelo purportedly did, in what’s referred to as sacred geometry, or the golden ratio (1:phi or 1:1.618…). By channeling an innate sense of this proportion, stone artists Andreas and Naomi Kunert can imbue their unique works with movement, depth, and feeling.

Owners and principal artists of Ancient Art of Stone, the Kunerts create what they call “one-of-a-kind stone portals for individuals, businesses, public museums, and art galleries.” At their 15-acre studio in Cowichan Valley, British Columbia, Canada, they first source stones, then design and build artistic and functional fireplaces, stone doors, spas, mosaics, megaliths, and murals and ship and install them across North America.

According to Andreas, “Everything we do is personal — it’s an intimate experience — and built intuitively. We delve in and go down the rabbit hole and become inspired; our work is the product of this experience.”

Meeting of the Minds

Andreas credits Vermont for his love of stone. He grew up in a sparsely populated rural area in that state and spent a lot of time on his own outdoors. An artist by nature — he would eventually dabble in painting and photography — he always loved what he could do with stone, “from the minute to the megalithic; it’s very appealing,” he says.

As a younger man, Andreas was an avid extreme skier and discovered a passion for “life’s mysterious flow.” His adventures took him to the mountains of Europe, and wherever he went he photographed the landscape. He was intrigued by the patterns he saw in nature. He moved to Canada and started K2 Stone Quarries on Vancouver Island. The business grew and was successful. In 2009, he met Naomi, who had been on her own journey.

“I had an early fascination with archaeology and the native Cree people,” Naomi says. She grew up on the Saskatchewan prairie in a home located near a stone grotto and a natural spring where people would visit on pilgrimages for healing. “We’d find arrowheads, stone hammers, teepee circles,” she says, which ignited an “interest in the ancient in terms of stone and how people used it.” In 2000, she got an undergraduate degree in fine arts at the University of Saskatchewan and focused on sculpture and extended media, stone being one of them. Faced with cancer in her late 20s, she found solace and healing with the First Nation medicine people. She credits them with helping her develop visionary abilities that still guide her today. By the time she met Andreas, she says, she had already dreamt of him. More than a decade and five children later, they complement each other in spirit and in business.

Passion Embedded

The Kunerts’ projects usually take a year or more and begin with individual stones—lots and lots of stones. While clients often offer them stones, the Kunerts also travel around to fill a trailer with stones from gravel pits and glacial moraines, or they’ll select pallets of natural stone from quarries. “The First Nations also gather stone for us. We’re always searching,” Andreas says, adding that the type of stones they prefer are flat and curved, formed by glaciers. “They’re not river stone. A river tumbles stones round: it doesn’t flatten them. But a glacier will cleave them. We often find them wherever a glacier has been and has left stones behind, even in [a place you wouldn’t expect] like Utah.”

The fireplace project known as “Memories Surround Me” was commissioned by a couple in Spokane, Washington, who were about to move to a home they were having built. While the project did begin with stones, it also began with a client wanting to have something that represented love writ large.

“They met as teenagers and have been married 50 years. They love fly fishing. Every time they go fishing, they bring home a pebble or a saucer-shaped stone. The wife joked that [they’d collected so many stones] they could hardly park in the garage anymore,” Andreas says. The husband asked the Kunerts to use the stones to create a fireplace that he could give his wife as a Christmas gift in tribute to their years together.

The Kunerts work hard to know their clients. “Naomi has the ability to tune into a client and who they are and what we should bring to them in stone or crystal,” says Andreas. She sees working with clients as a spiritual journey. “Not necessarily something religious,” she says, “but the nature of the stones and their honoring can bring connection and peace and stability to our clients’ lives. We build with that intention. We’re building a sacred space that’s also functional artwork.”

As the Kunerts spent time with the Spokane clients, they learned about their hobbies like fly fishing and traveling, that they loved their old home’s unique architecture, and that they wanted to include niches on their fireplace to feature pottery and other small artworks. “We channeled the inspiration into three different design options for them,” Naomi says. Although their hand-drawn sketches can sometimes be detailed, the drawing ultimately has to be open ended. “We tell clients that we let each stone speak. You can’t always find an exact stone for the design.”

The Spokane couple brought about 10 percent of the stones to this project, and the Kunerts supplied the rest of the approximately 15 tons of stone used. Once the sketch was approved the heavy work began.

Built For Legacy

The fireplace eventually would live in a great room that had yet to be built on a home in a residential neighborhood. When completed, it would stand 22 feet tall. The first step was to make a poured-concrete and rebar substructure of about 18 feet that would be strong enough to hold the stone design embedded on it.

The fireplace was built from the bottom up, in two parts that would be connected on site. On the bottom half of the fireplace, the design incorporates two vertical pieces of sandstone, each two feet thick and each weighing one and a half tons, placed on either side of the firebox. These are connected across the top of the firebox by a 40-inch horizontal piece of sandstone, which is topped by a 12-inch layer of intricately placed individual stones and then an organic-edged granite mantle. Once on site they would add a hand-polished basalt hearth at the base.

The sandstone arrived as square blocks. Using a hydraulic chainsaw, ring saw, hammer, and chisel, Andreas carved into the basic shape to create alcoves and nooks. He then bolted the blocks from behind to the concrete substructure.

The top half of the fireplace holds the central inspiration stone to which the thousands of individual smaller stones find their way.

When the stones arrived, the clients’ contribution and others (from quarries in Colorado and British Columbia), the Kunerts organized them by color and hue, shape (flat or curved) and size. “Some were covered in lichen. Some could be used as feature stones; some would create flow,” Naomi says.

The stones were not numbered or laid out. Knowing where to place the stones, which are essentially a cladding, is where the magic happens. “As much as possible, even though we’re sculptors, we try not to alter the stone, and we use its natural form,” Andreas says.

While there’s a sketch to go by, “We try to honor the shape and color of the stone and how it connects to a particular client. We listen to the stone to see how it wants to be honored or incorporated,” Naomi says. “A stone is as much of a living thing as a plant; it has a certain biology and a matrix.”

The Spokane clients had one large round stone that they wanted to use as the central focal point. “The idea was that the design showed their life together leading to this stone,” Andreas says. “The stones would mean nothing to the average person; they would see just a pile of stones. But to us, they have meaning.” Adds Naomi, “We talk about noticing if a stone is missing from a pile of thousands. They become part of you; it’s like an artist knowing if they have all their tools.”

As with every project, while Andreas mortars the stones to the substructure, he says he takes his time and “feels the stones, listens to the stones. Every day you don’t know which stone is next. You go with a feeling and follow that feeling. It’s hard to describe.”

Which brings us back to the golden ratio and sacred geometry. Andreas says that his perception of the world has always been mysterious and remarkable, and that he has an innate ability to see the sacred geometry and recognize this pattern in nature, people, and materials. “As a child, I discovered I could play with stones on the ground and make these patterns. I wasn’t told about sacred geometry and the math behind it until well into my career.”

Working from the bottom up on this fireplace, Andreas placed the stones in curve and swirl patterns with mortar, bolts, or fastening pins depending on the stone’s size. He also incorporated arrowheads, hammerheads, scrapers and other “hidden treasures.” It was a complex dance to match the design to the concept and make the piece still feel natural and unassuming.

Conscious that the final product would flex and stress on a truck bed, Naomi says, “It’s overbuilt. Probably stronger than anything someone might have built in their home.” Within the concrete is a metal substructure of rebar and plates that runs all the way to the top to connect with lifting eyes, or eye bolts, so a crane could hook into and lift it.

Once the structure was completed, the Kunerts had it loaded onto a truck in two parts and driven 450 miles to Spokane, where the next challenge faced them: craning the 30,000-pound artwork into an exclusive residential neighborhood with homes surrounding the client’s newly built but unfinished home in freezing temperatures. “Usually, our clients have major acreage. This was a tight site,” Andreas says.

The house itself sits on a concrete slab. The great room would be built around the fireplace, whose own foundation goes six feet into the ground. Once the fireplace was craned into place, the two parts, bottom and top, were welded together on the back with steel plates.

“The fireplace will be the strongest part of the house,” Andreas says. “The builders ran the beams into the top, so the fireplace is actually holding up the roof.”

The fireplace’s concrete structure is embedded into the wall, along with the firebox. The builders placed drywall against the sides of the fireplace “nice and snug,” Andreas says, with few gaps for the Kunerts to fill in.

Letting Go

The clients are thrilled with their fireplace, their amazingly beautiful and unique piece of functional art that captures their love for one another and their lives together. “On the day it was delivered and lifted into place the client’s wife cried, exclaiming her joy,” Andreas says. Now that the home is complete, they describe the commission as the heart of their home and their favorite room to sit in.

For the Kunerts, after a year of living with and working on a project, it’s always difficult to say goodbye. “It’s personal to us. That’s a piece of our life. Everything that happened in our lives during that year is written into that artwork. Each piece becomes a part of us. When the truck leaves, it’s like ‘There go the children.’ We’re happy and proud but we’re hurting.”

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All photos courtesy of Nicholas Fairplay.

It’s not every day a sculptor gets to carve one Romanesque statue as part of a project. Nicholas Fairplay had the opportunity to carve two using Indiana limestone that are now on permanent display as part of the College of Fine Arts building at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Fairplay is an artist and his medium is natural stone. He works with stones such as marble, limestone, and sandstone. While his studio is currently based just outside Cleveland, Ohio, his training began in Europe, where he specialized in hand-carved stone, marble sculpture, and ornaments.

Fascinated by the large cathedrals throughout Europe, Fairplay visited one after high school and asked for a job. While they couldn’t hire him at first, he offered to work for free for six months. They brought him on staff and he showed up and soaked up everything he could. It was during that time he fell in love with sculpting and working with natural stone. “When I started carving natural stone, I just loved it,” he says. “I love that it’s three-dimensional.” At the end of his free training, the cathedral hired him.  

Today, Fairplay’s body of work can be seen on well-known buildings in London, including Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Houses of Parliament, and Hampton Court. He’s also worked on Windsor Castle.

When he arrived stateside, he wasted no time contributing to American buildings, including St. John the Divine in New York City, the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City and the five intricately designed niches at Carnegie Mellon University. Of the six niches created when the building was built in the early 1900s, only one was completed. The other five, according to Fairplay, were left unfinished and each niche was to be carved in a different architectural genre.

“It was a very difficult job because all the stone was on the wall,” Fairplay says. He and his team had to slowly cut part of the stone off the wall and work on it on a bench. While removing it, they needed to careful not to damage the work next to it. Other details were done while the stone was still on the wall. “It was like you find yourself carving upside down a little bit. It’s a little bit awkward.”

He researched the niches and statue designs since every detail had to be plotted and sketched out in advance. To create the Romanesque statues, he cut the blocks and kept those on the ground so he could carve them before placing them in the niche.

While carving Romanesque statues isn’t a project that comes across his studio often, Fairplay says this specialized training and artistry is sought out among homeowners, designers, and architects, especially when it comes to restoration projects or those who want truly one-of-a-kind pieces in their homes.

In cases when the client only has a general ideal of what they’re seeking, Fairplay goes one step further and creates pieces of art, carving leaves, snails, or lion heads.

When Fairplay was asked to add some carvings of sycamore leaves as part of the entrance of a gothic style home in Cleveland, Ohio, he knew the client was expecting cookie cutter cut outs and the same style throughout. He decided to carve each of them differently to give them character.

For example, he added a little curling on some of the sycamore leaves and on a few of them he included an “odd little animal,” he says. “In the spandrel, or the triangular piece on an arch, there are three leaves and a little frog,” he shares.

One piece features a cicada on one of the sycamore leaves. Another has a lizard running. According to Fairplay, you’re not meant to sit and stare at the carvings but rather to appreciate those little details when you come upon them. He wasn’t paid extra to include those details but as an artist with some artistic liberty on a project, he loves adding them because that’s what people notice, he says.

“It’s a little detail and you don’t want it to be too dominant,” he adds. “You want it to be just here and there. And that way, it’s more. It’s not in your face.”

Fairplay appreciates being brought into a project, whether it’s through an architect or residential homeowner, and having an opportunity to bring his artistic skills to the table. Recently he’s been commissioned to create large scale stone fireplaces for homes. Some feature details like a lion face (designed so the fire would be in the mouth area) while others are more subtle.  The artistry cannot be underestimated.

The fireplace featuring the lion face was smaller than other fireplaces he’s been designing as of late but even that was six feet tall by five feet wide. He’s currently working on five fireplaces in his studio, some in a gothic style, one provincial French and an elaborate Italian one in marble featuring a Cupid angel holding a shield.

Whether it’s a classic design or part of modern architecture, Fairplay believes that sometimes less is more. You don’t need carvings to appear throughout a building to appreciate the artistry. “I’m not for seeing carvings on every inch of the building,” Fairplay says. A little foliage or detail or ornament can go a long way.

“Some buildings need something like that to sort of enhance and be in balance with the building,” he notes. “To have a sort of small area with some ornament. If you think of art deco, the ornament is very limited and it can actually be very stylized too. But it can be fantastic.”

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An earlier version of this article appeared in Building Stone Magazine.

In Ancient Greece, the goddess Nike personified victory. She was a messenger whose wings enabled her to fly over the Earth rewarding victors of battle or athletic competition with fame and glory. The most famous depiction of Nike is the Winged Victory of Samothrace, also known as Nike of Samothrace. This marble Hellenistic sculpture dates to the second century BC and is one of the world’s most celebrated sculptures. In 2017, it caught the eye of a private Fortune 100 company in Portland, Oregon, who tasked a talented team of professionals to reinvent the iconic artwork on the wall of the executive boardroom at its corporate headquarters.

Reimagining a Classic

Peter Andrusko, master sculptor and owner of The Andrusko Group in Portland has been crafting stone sculptures for over thirty years. “The Winged Goddess of Victory,” a 15-foot-tall, 18-foot-wide bas-relief comprised of basalt and granite, is one of the most complicated and technically challenging projects he has ever worked on. “I’ve never done anything even remotely as complex,” he said.

“In May of 2017, I was approached by the project manager for special arts projects’ at Hoffman Construction Company and began a dialogue about the viability of creating a massive stone bas-relief sculpture. When I was approached by one of the West Coast’s leading general contractors, I was thrilled. They had found me, which in a sense partly validated decades of effort on my part in trying to become known as a source of quality and innovation in a very obscure artisan niche.”

Andrusko learned some “old school” stone techniques from his father, a successful brick and stone mason, but is mostly self-taught, specifically in robotic Computer Numerical Control (CNC) technology, which has been beneficial to his business. “Robotics is not only the future, more importantly, it’s an absolute gift of life to the carver,” he said. “About 15 years ago, the robotics industry changed and started becoming accessible to workshops. Let’s just say it’s a very natural fit and what I know of hand-craft and my natural abilities in technology found a very, very interesting nexus.”

To create The Winged Goddess of Victory sculpture and wall design, which relied on robotic CNC machinery, Andrusko utilized a basalt quarried in Moses Lake, WA, which was supplied by Stone NW in Vancouver, WA, and Indian Black granite from Savema in Pietrasanta, Italy. “This work is constructed from a very hard, dense and brittle local black basalt, which was then inlayed into a field of waterjet textured Italian black granite tile,” Andrusko said. “There is also some lettering carved into the granite, which is also the product of my studio and hand.”

The basalt used for the sculptural elements is a ubiquitous Pacific Northwestern material that is available in various colors, textures, and forms. “In this particular case, it’s an amazingly tight-grained satiny black that takes a polish,” said Andrusko, who worked with a local stone company that cut the rough blocks to-size and supplied the slabs, which were then cut to fit the super tight specs needed for the project. “The core block dimension is 3 x 6 x 24 inches. Of that overall depth, the carving is contained within just 2 1/2 inches of depth and is then inlayed into the Graffiti granite paneling covering the wall.

According to Andrusko, there are over 300 parts in the finished piece, many of which were first roughed into shape with CNC robotics technology, then hand-finished and fitted into the cut-to-fit granite. “It is a process essentially similar to the one used by many stone carving studios throughout time—in this case, using robotic machines instead of human workers, such as those famously employed by Rodin in his studio to perform the roughing from the original models, which in this case are digital files.”

Technology and Design

When designing the 7,500-pound sculpture, Andrusko worked with a professional digital art team, which created the digital renderings from which he worked. “The first and most important aspect of the project was the artwork,” the sculptor explained. “Initially, I was asked to provide the artwork, but the delivery date required for the completed work was rapidly approaching, so they hired a professional digital art team. We worked closely together during the first few months to refine the design. I produced an initial scale model of the carving in high-density urethane along with a full-size section that was approximately 4 x 5 feet.” After receiving feedback on the first scale model, a second was commissioned to confirm the changes would meet the demanding attention to detail.”  Based on feedback of the first scale model, a second was commissioned to confirm the changes would meet the demanding attention to detail.

According to Andrusko, the anticipated weight of the stone on its own was intimidating.  “The immediate need was to minimize the overall mass—getting as much detail as possible for something of this scale necessitated a balance between weight reduction (thickness of the module) and down-lighting. Also, keep in mind that all of this mass is hanging off the wall structure along a thin ribbon of floor inside of a modern-constructed building on an upper floor. Due diligence required some engineering attention.”

A compromise was found by creating a 3-inch thickness overall, with a 2 1/2-inch maximum range to work within. “This got us our range and the digital arts team was able to model the lighting and the relief topography to maximize the effect visually,” Andrusko said. “The reality is that there is a massive amount of ambient light in the space, which interferes to some degree with the LED down-light effect during the day, but some of the imagery was taken at night and one can see an amazing depth and clarity of surface that is truly a wonder; it appears far deeper and more defined than the 2 1/2 inches would suggest. A success by the design team and lighting specialists.”

The design team used displacement mapping to create the digital renderings, an alternative computer graphics technique that uses a texture map or heightmap to cause an effect where the actual geometric position of points over the textured surface are displaced, which gives surfaces a great sense of depth and detail, permitting self-occlusion, self-shadowing and silhouettes.

“The value of this is that the computer software I used to develop the cut files can accurately manage the range of black (lowest point) to white (highest point), which are, in essence, user-definable, which allows the Z-axis to be established properly so that everything fits in 3D,” Andrusko detailed. “The hand-carving is to blend and fit everything and to put the finishing touch into the carving.

“There was a great deal of struggling with the size of the file initially and trying to solve some problems like positioning into the fixed grid of the field materials that needed to be discussed and established before breaking the image into precise parts,” Andrusko explained. “Also, the client insisted on 1/16-inch tolerances between parts. Once all the grid issues were worked out, then the parts were segmented into the modules. I broke out the grid elements in granite from the basalt and cut stencils to mark and fit the granite part by part — hand-cut with a ring saw. I initially proposed that this be done with a waterjet, but in the midst of the time crunch, I elected to keep this in-house to cut by hand while the CNC machines were running. It turned out to be a very good decision for reasons I wasn’t expecting having to do with the final fitting. The G-code files were generated to run the machines and smaller parts were nested into the stones in groups. Everything was coded and numbered so that the parts could be fitted and mapped for the installation team.”

Constructing the 300 parts for the project required an intricate process. “The parts cutting involved an initial ‘roughing’ stage of milling,” Andrusko explained. “About 1/16 inch passes to get to the core shape of the part. The secondary stage of milling involved a smaller bit and a change of trajectory that netted the finished part fairly close to the final dimensions needed. That final step involved stacking the stones into a grid, hand-finishing and cleaning, and tightening the cuts and sharp edges in order to have a smooth transition between adjacent parts. The largest single area I was able to get flat at one time in the studio was approximately 4 x 4 feet.”

While the digital technology was needed to create a sculpture of this stature in such a short amount of time, Andrusko believes that hand-carving was still a key factor in the project’s success. “The robotics utilized in the studio amplifies the productive output of the carver manifold, but it still requires the breath of life of the master carver to perform the final steps by hand to finish and detail the sculpture,” he said. “However, what the technology allows is for a single individual to perform the work of dozens of people working practically non-stop for months on end.”

Even with the aid of technology, completing the project was still an arduous task. “I was able to keep running six CNC machines alone for most of four and a half months,” Andrusko said. “My day started at around 5 a.m. and ended at or near 10 p.m. Cutting hard stone requires a very attentive focus. Water supply is critical or there could be a fire, bit break, damage to the work piece, or at minimum a whole bunch of wasted time, so there was no practical way to run the machines all day every day as much as I wanted to or would have liked to. The machines needed to be monitored constantly and any instances of failure caught and corrected as soon as possible. I was often literally running and constantly on my feet moving between machines, changing parts out, swapping bits, clearing obstructed water lines and quickly became attuned to the sounds (healthy and otherwise) of each machine in the studio. I stopped keeping track of time, but it was a relentless grind of 14 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, and other than a few hours for Thanksgiving and Christmas with family, it didn’t stop until I was done.”

The Installation

Andrusko gives the majority of the credit for the success of the installation to the project manager at Hoffman Construction Company and the installation team at Western Tile & Marble. “This was very much a team effort and the success of the whole was really a shared collaborative effort,” he said.

The installation, which was completed in about a month, required one stone mason and three tile setters. The team bonded the wall tiles to USG Corporation’s Durock Brand Cement Backer Board using Laticrete’s 257 Titanium thinset mortar, which is designed for the installation of large-format tiles and gauged porcelain tile panels and slabs. “Thicker carved stones were installed with Latapoxy 310 Stone Adhesive,” said Floyd Goodwin, project manager at Western Tile & Marble. “We used copper wire anchors into studs.”

Goodwin explained how the heavy, irregularly shaped tiles needed to be carefully installed to ensure flatness and desired joint thickness. “Maintaining joint dimensions and plumb was crucial because the carved stone had irregular edges and the substrate was wavy,” Goodwin said.

In addition to Laticrete’s 257 Titanium and Latapoxy 310 Stone Adhesive, the installation team also utilized Laticrete’s Permacolor Select cement grout and Latasil silicone sealant.

“They are truly professional craftsmen and I know they were also working under extreme stress and with a really tight schedule,” Andrusko said of the team. “They took my work and completed the site installation without a break or a scratch. I wasn’t needed onsite. There wasn’t a single punch list item related to the sculpture.”

Since the project’s completion, visitors have been amazed by the artwork and its resemblance to the original Winged Victory of Samothrace. “The client loves it,” said Goodwin.

The project received a 2018 Pinnacle Award from the Natural Stone Institute in the Architectural Carving/Lettering/Sculpture category. “One would assume the hope of any artist is to somehow imbue the breath of life into the inanimate; to effect in some profound way the beholder of the work,” Andrusko said. “That this now exists in the physical world where others can experience it makes me very happy.”

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All photos courtesy of Artistic Tile.

Weitzner at the Artistic Tile Slab Gallery

Award-winning American textile and product designer Lori Weitzner is used to working with textiles and paper, but when the opportunity presented itself to design a line of natural stone tiles with Artistic Tile, she didn’t hesitate. The result is a new collection that weaves two distinctly different disciplines – stone carving and fabric weaving – which ultimately resulted in a product that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Choosing stone for the River and Forest Collection

“Taking a walk in the Artistic Tile warehouse was like being a kid in a candy store,” admits Weitzner. As she walked down one wide aisle after another of stone slabs, she quickly realized how many different types of natural stone were available in the marketplace. She began to consider what kind of designs she could develop that would take into account her expertise as a textile designer while creating something that Artistic Tile didn’t already have in its collections.

“We knew Lori would appreciate the challenge of creating her signature textural effect in natural stone, and that she would help us deliver a fresh design carved in classic favorites like Bianco Carrara and Bardiglio marble,” says Nancy Epstein, founder and CEO of Artistic Tile.

The Endless Possibilities of Natural Stone

Collaborating on the River and Forest Collection

Choosing which types of natural stones to work with to develop a collection was going to be fun and Weitzner knew right away that she wanted to select stones that would enhance the patterns they were designing, and not fight the design. “As a textile designer, I wanted them to feel extremely tactile and soft, even though the surfaces were going to be hard,” she says.

A sample of the River Collection

With a nod toward her style of textiles and wallcoverings, Weitzner began developing concepts that were organic, nature-inspired, super tactile, and very dimensional, either in actuality or visually.

“From there, we spent about six weeks creating six different boxes with concepts in each one that had their roots in all the techniques we use in textile or paper making: weaving, embossing, printing, embroidering, sewing, folding, etc.,” explains Weitzner. “Then we presented these ideas and honed in on the ones that Artistic Tile felt they could reproduce successfully.”

Natural stones were chosen based on the end result of color and technique, getting the most woven-looking effect.

“Nothing compares to natural stone,” says Epstein. “Stone can be carved and textured, and the colors show the contrast between the texture and the stone.”

The Sophistication of Natural Stone

The Forest Collection

Throughout the process of designing and working with natural stone, Weitzner learned that like textiles, there are many techniques that can be applied to create various products, looks, finishes, and textures in stone.

Starting with open-ended ideas and not limiting herself to only what she considered possible encouraged her to be more creative with her designs. Since all stones are unique and have a personality of their own, Weitzner knew they had to make sure that the patterns they created would enhance and not disturb the inherent beauty of the stone.

Epstein and her team realized they were able to manipulate the stone surface to look and feel very different than anything they had achieved in the past.

“Lori’s approach led us to reconsider the stone canvas in new ways, creating a finished product that spoke to her aesthetic for texture and pattern, integrated with our experience of marble and stone technology,” Epstein notes.

Artistic Tile was excited to work with a designer who was willing to push the envelope and mix multiple techniques to get a more complex surface. “Our inspiration was Moro’s woven fabrics so we tried to consider methods to expose different layers and textures within the stone surface,” says Epstein.

The River and Forest Collection

Textured China Black marble

Weitzner and Artistic Tile worked together to release what they call the River and Forest collection. The two designs within the collection are an interpretation of the flow and organic tranquility of nature and use textile design techniques such as pleating, origami, and voided velvet to create a fabric-like effect on natural stone. The nature-inspired patterns will particularly appeal to those who want to create a tranquil space in their home, according to Epstein.

Forest Collection featuring Bianco Carrara marble

In Forest and River, Bardiglio Nuvolato and Bianco Carrara marble were used as part of the “whisper” palette to evoke a sense of calmness while textured China Black marble was used in the “night shadows” palette to create an elegant design for more contemporary spaces.

“Lori has developed a process of personalized Color Analysis which she performs for her clients to find the right palettes to fit their personalities and the mood they’re looking to achieve within a space,” adds Epstein. “Whisper creates a tranquil, Zen atmosphere, while night shadows sets a more contemporary and seductive tone.”

The Unmistaken Beauty of Natural Stone

Natural stone appeals to many of us because it’s timeless and speaks to our desire for a sustained connection to nature. The unique collaboration between Weitzner and Artistic Tile shows the possibilities that exist when it comes to allowing ourselves to expand our horizons. It doesn’t have to stop with the collaboration. It can also apply in how the natural stone is incorporated into our spaces.

While Epstein notes the 12” by 24” natural stone tiles would work well in a spa-like bathroom where they can be installed on shower walls as well as the main walls, or for a space designated for relaxation and meditation, they could be stunning on a fireplace or feature wall, where the details of the carved stone can be admired as art work.

Just as Weitzner was excited at the possibilities of creating with natural stone, so can designers and homeowners be in applying it to different types of settings.

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An earlier version of this article originally appeared in Building Stone Magazine.

MM Galleri’s new showroom in Singapore is far from typical. The Indonesian-based stone producer, distributor, and fabricator partnered with designer Budi Kurniawan to create a whimsical design reminiscent of the underworld of the Great Barrier Reef. The design demonstrates how MM Galleri’s groundbreaking marble bending technology can transform an empty space into a sophisticated fantasy world.

The design concept was fueled by the desire to dispel the perceptions that marble is unyielding and heavy. Designer Budi Kurniawan explained that the showroom design was inspired by the story of Finding Nemo and intended to reflect underwater life. “Along with the emergence of technology, we created a design concept to realize the dream. Taken from sequences where Merlin (Nemo’s father) and Dory (his father’s friend) are looking for missing Nemo, we created an organic cocoon to imitate the underwater experiences inside the showroom. We also take moments, starting from when Nemo goes to school with friends — gurgling and exploring the underwater world surrounded with corals and other sea creatures. There’s also a garden which represents corals, sea creatures, and underwater life. Those are parts of our inspiration for this project.”

Company President Peter Tjioe explained that the original concept of the showroom was done by Kurniawan, who intended for it to mimic the organic shape created by Zaha Hadid at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, South Korea. Because MM Galleri wanted to showcase the application of the bended marble technology, not aluminum panels, Tjioe revamped the entire design on his own and realized it within 10 months using the floor plan Kurniawan had developed. “The Singapore showroom is meant to feature the bended marble technology as the latest innovation established by our group,” said Tjioe. “After I was done with the marble ‘cocoon’ structure, Budi [Kurniawan] came to do the interior design, including the lighting and honeycomb table. All of the furniture is designed and produced by MM Galleri.”

According to Tjioe, the showroom in Singapore is MM Galleri’s latest expansion outside of Indonesia after inventing the bending marble technology. The company is the number one stone player in Indonesia, and possibly the largest player in the Southeast Asian market. MM Galleri’s project portfolio includes Shangri-La Jakarta, Westin Bali, Singapore Embassy in Jakarta, private yachts, and high-end residences.

Design considerations

Tjioe and his design team gave careful thought to creating a sophisticated and fluid design. “We had to ask ourselves, ‘How do we showcase the application of bended marble?’ The typical usage of marble is for flooring and walls which are very two dimensional. We wanted to change the world’s mindset for stone, so that it is no longer rigid.” Tjioe notes that the team also questioned which marble to showcase, and to what degree it could be bent. “Since the technology is brand new, we had to experiment to see which stones would suit the showroom best. We soon realized that Italian marble seemed to be pliable enough to create beautiful pieces. We have also been working very closely with GDA Marmi e Graniti’s Statuarietto [marble] quarry for a few large projects and are experienced with it. This is the biggest bended marble piece we have done so far.”

Tjioe chose the stone because it is renowned for being extremely dense and beautiful in terms of veining. “It is one of the least troublesome stones you could use for any stone application,” he said.

The new patented technology was created in order to revolutionize the stone industry. “As we all know, stone is rigid, fragile and heavy,” Tijoe said. “I sought to change this concept. I started by developing the technology to slice marble as thin as 1mm thick. This would make marble lighter, but more fragile. I then reinforced the marble with many backing options, such as honeycomb or glass to reduce its fragility. But marble would still be rigid after all this, hence I spent 20 years studying the technical details to be able to figure out how to bend marble.”

Fabrication and installation

The first step in realizing the design was to build a steel structure for the cocoon, which would serve as a mold onto which the 2mm-thick bended marble would be laminated. “In parallel with the creation of the structure, we bended and laminated marble on parts of the structure that were finished,” explained Tjioe. “We completed the entire structure in our factory in Surabaya, Indonesia, so we had to cut it into pieces to fit into a 20-foot container for shipping to Singapore. It took us about eight containers to ship everything in, and we sent 30 men to install it over a period of two months. The cocoon was the biggest bended piece we’ve done so far, so it really tested our teamwork and workmanship to fulfill the deadline.”

The innovator’s inspiration became reality in his desire to maximize the yield of marble used while reducing stone waste. “Normally, stone fabricators use an entire block of stone to create curved pieces like pillars, but with this technology we only need to use a few slabs of marble to do the same thing,” said Tjioe. “The material is cut thinner (standard 20mm vs. 2mm) and is more flexible in application.”

According to Tjioe, the backing can be anything as long as it has structural integrity. “In this case, we first created a metal structure as a mold, then “bended” the marble accordingly,” he explained. “This mold was reinforced with a steel structure before cutting it in the factory and reassembling it in the actual showroom location.

“The concept is not only applicable on floor, wall, and ceiling, but it’s also shown on the furniture pieces, such as a bar counter, spiral-shaped table, benches and a few more. Decorative lighting is also part of the design. Using thin slices of the material, we bended them into attractive shapes, such as forms of jellyfish. We wanted every remaining piece to be useful.”

Tjioe explained that the work is more like a craftsmanship, which is adjustable according to the field conditions. “The challenge is on how to make the marble pattern connect continuously and smoothly,” he said. “We cover connections with special treatment, in order to make the looks appealing and natural. All aspects are taken into account in details, such as air circulation inside the showroom project. Inspiration came from gills of fish, where direction of openings are distinguished with; facing up for air supply and air return with facing down. Audio and ambience were also taken into account, specifically to avoid the echo effect, which is likely due to the material and its cave-like structure.”

The Bent and Light showroom was honored with a 2018 Pinnacle Award of Excellence in the Commercial Interior category. While members of the jury were in awe of the project, at first they weren’t convinced that the curved walls were made of stone because they had never seen anything like this type of application before. Among the comments from the jury were: “It’s an important time in the industry and this is pushing the envelope. Can’t wait to see more like this one day – this may be the future of stone applications.”

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