'In Good Company'

These individually hand carved Alabaster Gem Hearts are about honoring the Earth, recognizing ourselves as part of the Earth, healing our own Hearts and Heart connections.  To hold one is to feel comforted, cared for, loved.  They remind us that we are part of an infinitely varied, wondrous Universe, that we both, the Alabaster Gem Hearts and us humans and all life are born of the same stardust.

Should I say what’s truly on my mind or not………..Oh, what the heck…….I will……….

For 35 years Paul and I have hand gathered rare colored and translucent Alabaster Gems from the great Deserts of the Southwest.  We climb over canyon walls, pry cherished pieces of rare gemstone out of cliff faces, harvest treasures hiding in secret Earth places.  Just us.  No machines.

This is not a ‘rape of the Earth’ mining operation that rips the skin and bowels of our planet apart for profit.  There is no factory of slaves, over the border sweat shops, abuse of human rights or Mother Earth.  It’s just Paul and me, gathering this rare gem Alabaster and handcarving each piece to reveal its unique and extravagant beauty.

We are about honoring the Earth and making an honest living with our hands and hearts.  We are about the sacredness of life and the gift of the creative process that has captured us for so long.  We are about sharing with others all these gifts that we have received and created.

Alabaster is stone.  It is gem.  It is forever.  Maybe the Alabaster Gem Heart that you purchase for your loved one who passes it onto their children, who passes it onto their children……will last forever too. “Hearts Forever”!

"The Wedding Ring"' - Gemstone Bowl for elegant, Engagement, Wedding and Anniversary Present

According to the American Gem Trade Association (AGTA), a gemstone is defined as any stone that is colorful, translucent and that can take a high polish.  Alabaster is such a rare gemstone.  Beloved for centuries around the world, prized in museum collections showing ancient Chinese and Egyptian treasures, shockingly, Alabaster has been an all but forgotten material in this country!  As Alabaster Master Paul Hawkins says, “we replaced this precious gemstone in our country with industrialism and plastic”. We are reviving this magnificent material known as “The Queen of Stones”.

The moment I saw the diversity of colored and translucent Alabasters on Paul’s show table in July of 1976 I fell in love with it’s elegance, variety and beauty.  Paul and I share a mutual love of this gemstone and have found great joy in bringing out it’s beauty, playing with its possibilities. Our shared service to this gemstone in the name beauty and preserving and honoring this precious material is the something larger than ourselves that has propelled and given deeper meaning to our life – along with our children.

Paul carved this gemstone White Alabaster Bowl that we call “The Wedding Ring”, inlaid it with the rarest of gemstone Orange Alabaster and extravagantly topped it with a magnificent Amythest Crystal onlaid with the finest of Uruguan Amythest crystal cluster.  The piece is 10″ High X 12″ Wide X 10″ Deep.  It would not be difficult to imagine this being the perfect engagement or wedding gift.

Each piece we make is uniquely and lovingly carved for that someone special who will fall in love with it. Impossible to repeat, because each stone has it’s own story,  this original art form truly honors this magnificent Gemstone – Alabaster.

"Golden-Pink Sunset Rose"

Alabaster is the only material on the planet that truly describes Roses that look like they’re blowing in the wind. In no other stone can you find reflected the softness, color and translucency of a Rose.  In my thirty-three years as a professional Alabaster carver, I have carved nineteen Alabaster Roses.   People do walk up to smell them! Alabaster and Rose are a perfect match of material and form.  This “Golden-Pink Sunset Rose” is the newest, the most technically extreme of them all and is carved from the very rarest of translucent pink and green Alabasters.

The “Golden-Pink Sunset Rose” will debut and be showcased at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Club Show in Tucson, Arizona from February 12th to 15th at the Tucson Convention Center.

Dimensionally this piece is  20″ High X 14″ Wide X 12″ Deep.  It is priced at $150,000.00.  It must be hand delivered.

'DIVINE ILLUMINATION'

When these  handcarved large Alabaster bowls are lit they transcend their form and become ‘Divine Illumined Beings’.  Their peaceful and powerful presence is undeniable.  A sense of wonder dances about them.  Questions arise about their true origins.  Like celestial beings, they carry messages that speak to us about our most profound questions.  They speak of beauty, majesty and mystery.

Where did they come from?   Materially, they are the evaporate of ancient inland seas, they are petrified water, carved.   How did these luminous bowls come into being?  Through the intention, vision and hands of a master who is willing to persevere through extreme challenge carving to achieve and reveal the essence of the stone.  Only remarkable love, passion and dedication can meet this task.  

There is only one source for these large handcarved, magnificent Alabaster bowls.  Paul Hawkins spends his life dedicated to revealing the beauty of each stone that he has hand gathered throughout the Southwest.  The largest of these bowls, like the one pictured, is over 500 lbs. in their raw state.  To achieve their highest beauty, over four hundred pounds of stone has to be removed – an almost impossible task that requires a lifetime of skill and developed aesthetic.

In almost four decades of carving, there are fewer than a dozen of the large white bowls that have been carved.  Massive, intact raw Alabaster nodules have been a rare find.  Two of these bowls are available right now.

If you require authentic work, rare beauty and love luminous stone and natural materials, these handcarved Alabaster bowls will grace and illuminate your life.

When it rains - a larger perspective

Obama, we the people elected you because of your promise of change in the ways we need change from dealing with and caring about the environment to healing the profound wounds to our constitution and legal system that were inflicted during the Bush-Cheney regime to healing and bringing balance and oversight back into the financial system to repowering our country with alternative renewable energy sources to rethinking and reconstructing our food and health delivery systems to promotes health for the Earth and for the people to bringing to justice the people who abused our laws and justice system in the past eight year debacle to………….the problems we need to address are endless.  We have suffered long enough under the weight of conservative fears and limited perspectives.  We need new expanded vision enacted immediately to save this planet and to help all of us who are, have been or will be suffering from the greedy, short-sighted, uninspired, fear based ideas and people who have been in power.  How dare you spend time negotiating with Republicans who had so much responsibility for bringing about the dark reality we and the whole world are living in today especially when you have all the majority you need.  We elected you to move, to act now on all that is so pressing.  We have had it with watered down, ineffective, legislation and action.  We need an effective leader and leadership who honestly address the massive problems facing us.  We do not need more politics.  The old ways are dead in the water.  

I have been fortunate enough to be a self-supporting artist during the last 30 years, the first period of time in history that artist actually could make a living in a reliable way!  Our economy is changing, shifting under our feet.  It’s a financial quake, at least a point 7 on the scale.  I heard this morning that the United States will fare better than the rest of the world, many of whose economies are tumbling even as we speak.  The epicenter of this financial debacle was the greed and avarice of Wall Street, was the free wheeling market economy barrons not only in the financial sector but in our houses of Congress!   Ronald Regan’s, let the winner take all, economics gambled our money away, gambled our trust and erroded a system that at one time had checks and balances.   

So what does that mean?  That an artist can only make money when greed and avarice thrive?

Primitive and ancient cultures respected those who made with their hands, who gave material reality to the creative spirit flowing inside them. In fact, there was no separate name for artist, makers were just called ‘human being’, which was the highest of honors.   We have lost that respect in this culture.  Art is respected but not artists.  Ask any parent if they want their kid to be an artist or a doctor or lawyer.  Money wins in this culture.  Little else is given notice.  

Obama, do not negotiate and waste yours and our time and energy any longer with people who only care about acquiring the things that artists make  but who do not respect artists.  Be your promise.  Act now!

'THE DILEMMA'!

We’ll be set up at the Carefree Art and Wine show this weekend and are very proud to introduce ‘THE DILEMMA’, Paul’s newest Doodleysquat, for the first time to the public. We decline responsibility if you somehow feel so attracted that you find yourself caught on it’s horns!

To give you a little context, the Doodleysquats are our contemporary American version of Chinese house gods, spirit protectors.  They are sure to protect you and your home from whatever you might need protecting, i.e. tax collectors, mother-in-laws, bad vibe neighbors, whatever.  They are also the becoming extinct species of individual expression.

We’ve gone through a rough time in this country for a while now.  The Doodleysquats have helped to protect us, working behind the scenes.  Powerful yet unrecognized.  The emergence of  ’The Dilemma’ into public view is a very good omen for all of us.  With ‘The Dilemma’ fully revealed for the first time and in full public view we can take an honest accounting of ourselves and commit to positive change.  With ‘The Dilemma’ as witness to our follies we can no longer hide lest we risk being caught on it’s horns!  Ouch!

We are 33 year professionals and have been hanging on here but let me tell you that we artists are the proverbial canary in the mineshaft.  Because we are right there ‘on the street’, with our fingers directly on the pulse of the economy we knew a year and a half ago what was coming down.  

We have 5 shows coming up from now until the end of March here in Arizona.  Paul calls us ‘a full service Art business’.  Anyone who loves our work can find something they can afford.  We have carving kits for $30.00, my lastest Rose for $100,000.00, and much in between.  

Look on our website for our ‘upcoming events’ and think about stimulating the economy and gracing your life with a gorgeous handmade, original Alabaster carving.

See you soon. 

Susan

In this culture we’ve lived out of priority and in fear for too long.  We need to get our priorities straight here.  Shy away from, refuse to buy plastic, disposable, manufactured, soul draining, ugly, dispensable, wasteful, frivilous STUFF!  Refuse to exchange your best energy – your money – for anything that will harm the Earth, harm your children, their health and their future.   BUY ART!   Fall in love, grace your lives, support and surround yourselves with beauty.  Nourish your souls.  Flourish the economy with your love not your fear.

A friend sent a picture of the piece to a friend who works in the Harvard museums. This is what she said….Hi Susan-
A friend who works at one of the Harvard libraries/museums had this to say about my query re. getting your work into a museum:

“As to your question regarding your friends carvings. The one in the image is a tour de force of the carver’s art; however, the problem is that this sort of thing, however striking, falls outside the modernist and post-modernist cannon. If it (or the equivalent, that is) was from 6th c. China, it would be a desirable work of art of interest to the Sackler Museum (but not the Peabody at all since it is entirely devoted to ethnographic art). This piece falls somewhere in the realm of contemporary decorative arts, and would have appealed strongly to my parents, both of whom were botanists, but is simply not the sort of thing that art museums are looking for, I’m sorry to say.”

My response………what is this need to categorize and what is ‘decorative art‘? Is that like jewelry on a body? What used to be new, according to this woman i.e. modern, contemporary, now feels very mainstream – like been there, done that. These Roses are at the heart of my process which is a celebration of the stone, a stretching of the medium, a deepening of my skill, a full expression of my sense of beauty.

What category does all that fit into?

I invite comment, enlightenment, illumination on this topic of my Roses and our work. Please enjoy our website. The new Rose will be on there soon.