Taking Delivery

I've had this postcard pinned to my notice board in the studio for such a long time now. I brought it back from my first trip to the marble quarries in Carrara, Italy in 1996. The experience was a real eye opener for me. I had never seen anything like it before. From the characters of the people who worked there, to the vast scale of the operation of quarrying marble. I remember there was only one  road up into the mountains and one road down. It was as frightening as it was thrilling, passing huge truks with a 7 ton load on hair pin bends. You definitely need a head for heights. I could never do their job. At the foot of the mountain there was a small outdoor museum which was an area roped off with a few notice boards telling the history of the place and old photos of when Musolini plundered the hills for some of the largest single blocks of marble for his buildings in Milan. However it was this postcard that caught my eye and made me smile when I was looking for my own souvenir to take away with me. It always triggers my memory when I'm about to take receipt of large blocks of stone myself. I have had to roll a few off the sides of trucks in the past but in the case of the Kilkenny from Ireland I'll be opting for a more straight forward and less damaging approach. The stone leaves the yard in Ireland today and should start its journey over to England and arrive in Kent by Tuesday. To find out more about the Cobtree Sculpture Commission please visit;http://thecobtreesculpture.blogspot.co.uk/