WHITMAN – At first, there was mild concern that artist and stone carver Andrew Carr had become lost on his way to the library. But, as this is a New England town, they needn’t have feared.
Sure enough, Carr arrived in town, he made a bee-line for Whitman’s Mt. Zion Cemetery, and why not?
When you are scheduled to demonstrate stone cutting, especially the kind of funereal folk art found on the slate headstones of the 18th century in cemeteries and burying grounds all over New England, it only makes sense to check out what the locals were up to.
The tympanum, or rounded top section, of the headstone he photographed to demonstrate happened to be done by Josiah Manning, according to local taphophile, Leslie DiOrio, who attended the talk and demonstration, doing a bit of internet research as Carr spoke about the design of the stone design he planned to demonstrate.
Born in Hopkinton in 1725, Manning was living in Windham, Conn., when he died in 1806. He and his sons Frederick (1758-1810) Rockwell (1760-1806) “established a style of gravestone carving that became dominant in eastern Connecticut for nearly 50 years. Manning stones are present in almost every eighteenth-century cemetery in eastern Connecticut from the Sound to the Massachusetts border,” according to the website findagrave,com.
So, the stone was an excellent choice.
“His style is really interesting,” Carr said of Manning’s work found locally, down to his choice of stone – purple slate. “I’ve never seen this guy’s style before.”
He described the caricature on the stone as having stern eyes “and he’s got a little pouty mouth,” – which may have even been an effort to render the deceased’s death mask in bas relief.
The image is roughed out in chalk or pencil on a grid separating the stone into quarters, to give an indication of where he would be cutting the stone.
“I think it’s more interesting for you guys to connect the process of this to a local person,” he said. “I see it as an art form, where a lot of memorial dealers [these days] see it as a business.
Manning’s rough outline would have mainly been used as a map or blueprint to provide himself with an indication of where he was going.
“They’re not perfect,” Carr said of the gravestone carvings. “That’s what I love about these old headstones. There’s a hand [drawn] quality about it. I like that these have a folk-quality about them.”
Tools of the craft have changed little over time. A self-taught carver whose been at it for just a year, he joked that he doesn’t teach it, because there’s not much money in it.
“Am I going to get in trouble for making noise in the library?” he asked as he started tapping at the chisel with his dummy. Carr noted a carver has to be aware of the area around a design as much as the design itself.
As he spoke about the work he was doing and the art form in general, his audience of librarians, archivists, taphophiles, amateur history buffs and a self-described Goth gathered around him for a better vantage point.
“You’re going deeper and deeper,” he said. “You start with a little incision, almost like you’re tracing the drawing with a very thin line, and then you’re getting deeper and deeper.”
He surmised that a master stonecutter could be doing the more involved designs while apprentices worked on lettering or simpler motifs.
Slate and marble, Carr said, are like God created the perfect stone.
“It’s like these stones want to be carved, whereas granite doesn’t want to be worked with,” he said. “It’s very stubborn. This [slate] is almost like butter.”
Unfortunately, slate is also becoming harder to find, and therefore more expensive and some countries, like Brazil, are not known for good quality slate.
He also demonstrated his work on another project – a letter chart of the Cherokee alphabet.
“I’ve got to follow what I’m feeling,” he said. “I’m ready to take this into three dimensions. I want to start doing sculpture.”
Carr came to stone carving by accident. A two-dimensional artist graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design; the Salem native was studying painting.
“I was always drawing and painting,” he said. “I went to RISD for oil painting and never really thought about sculpture until the pandemic,” he said, noting how people were picking up all manner of unusual hobbies, including the attempt at perfecting sourdough bread.
“Mine just happened to be carving,” he said. “I really liked it and I started to do it … and take it very seriously. If I want to analyze it, death was on my mind, as it was for everybody, and it was a way to cope with it a little bit – take something scary and make something beautiful.”
He said stonework appeals to his sense of creativity in a way that drawing an painting never did. So, with one or two chisels in his toolbox, he ordered a few samples of slate and he was on his way to a path he had never considered before.
He worked on lettering first, making house number slates for friends and then pet gravestones before getting his first commission for a person’s stone.
Since then, he’s been doing it full time.
“I’m really trying to learn about who this person was and translate their spirit into stone,” Carr said. “What kind of stone are you?” What color stone? … I really put a lot of thought and care about every step in the process.”
Examples of his gravestone carving can be found at both Instagram or his website: stoneoverbones and stonesoverbones.com.