This week really proved a real test, the weather was bad and the work tricky.  I also  had to work by myself for most of the week, which is not fun at all, as the daily sarcasm sometimes helps one over the pain threshold...
But at the end of the week, the sun was out and Raphael Beil was back, in my view, he is the Mathew Pinsent of the stonecarving world, you really want him in your team...
( sorry , this reference probably only get the Brits..)

 We  are at the stage, where we move through various stages of smoothing down the surface, a laborious and very time consuming stage ....

And our little set up here in the quarry has finally greened over...

Production week 4, and the great Raphael Beil had to work all by himself, as I was back in London for the week.
We are now at the "smoothing stage", and Raphael is wet grinding the surface with a large diamond plated grinding disc. This is is the first stage of many, to get to the final honed finish.

While Raphael was slave labouring away in the quarry in Norway, I , amongst many other things, worked on the designs of the pattern, that will in part cover the surface of the sculpture.
Here pictures of the first draft designs, which are based on the basic construction of DNA.
They turn into sandblasting stencils , which were then cut on  the laser cutter in my London studio to take back to the quarry next week.

E. Altenburger boucharding

 A mixed bag of weather presented us with different challenges, still, we battled on and worked on the finer details of the flows. Towards the end of the week, we reached a stage where Raphael could start with the first stage of grinding. The sculpture will be honed, to get a silky surface. This is not easy to achieve, as one has to go through many levels of grinding stages to get to the finished surface.
By now, I can really feel the sculpture coming to life.

Raphael Beil on first stage of grinding

Ekkehard Altenburger and Thor Lundh

The other day, we had a visit of the quarry owner Thor Lundh, of Lundhs AS.
He is the founder of Ludhs AS and has grown the business into a large mining operation with many quarries throughout Scandinavia.

Thor Lundh is very supportive of the arts. Although  still active in his business on a daily basis, he personally supervised the quarrying of my block to make sure we have an outstanding material for our sculpture. Making sculpture is not dissimilar to quarrying large blocks of granite. One is highly dependent on teamwork as well as the  experience and expertise of others. Granit is a very demanding material to make sculpture from; here I find myself surrounded with people very much on top of their game.

Tuesday, May 6th, and the weather has turned to the worst.
Still , we battled on in the driving  rain.

Here, Raphael Beil shaping the outer flows, which do come along nicely...

The end of week 2.
We have progressed well, and need a well deserved weekend off, as it has been relentless work day in day out.
While i was concentrating on digging deeper into the central crevice of the sculpture, Raphael Beil worked on the outer flows , shaping them with the angle grinder and boucharding the surface over, ready for rough grinding.

After 2 weeks, we are both delighted  in the way the sculpture gradually emerges from the original block of granite.

 The new week continues with hard work and plenty of dust, but we do have the most amazing blue sky to work under...

Here Raphael Beil cutting and chipping away in a cloud of dust.

Saturday, the weather turned absolutely awful, so we called it a day ( or a week...) after lunch. Here, Raphael Beil chipping away in the driving rain.

On Sunday, I caught some fish and explored the quarry, which spreads along this valley for miles. Some parts have been slowly taken back by nature, some are deliberately landscaped, so that nature can take over.