Stone and soul: The enduring draw of the MARBLE/marble Symposium

By Eden Lane
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5min 01sec
Protected by a mask, Ulrike Zugelder uses a diamond-coated power grinder
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Protected by a mask, Ulrike Zugelder uses a diamond-coated power grinder to shape a 125-pound block of marble into a representation of an oxtail vertebrae, sitting atop the stone at left, July 18, 2024 at the MARBLE/Marble Stone Carver Symposium. She squirreled it away following a memorable meal near her home in Southern California a couple of years ago. “One day I’m going to carve that,” she said she vowed at the time.

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Ulrike Zugelder has marked off portions of her marble block to help her navigate the process of shaping it, July 18, 2024 at the MARBLE/Marble Stone Carver Symposium.
MARBLE/MARBLE STONE CARVER SYMPOSIUM 240718
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One of the attractions of the Stone Carver Symposium to participants is that, unlike working alone in studios, they can share experience, and consult with, about 40 other like-minded folks of all ability levels during their 10-day sessions. Ulrike Zugelder, center, takes a break and talks with other stone carvers, July 18, 2024.

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Artist Ann Cunningham leads a class on relief carving at the MARBLE/Marble Stone Carver Symposium, July 18, 2024.
MARBLE/MARBLE STONE CARVER SYMPOSIUM 240718
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Marble dust flies into Joe Adams’s face as he shapes his marble block into the shape of a bowl surrounded by flames, at the MARBLE/Marble Stone Carver Symposium, July 18, 2004.
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“A stone can’t tell you what you don’t really know, you can’t tell a stone where to go! Give it a minute …” A message with a hard hat at the MARBLE/Marble Stone Carver Symposium, July 18, 2024.

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Joshua Wiener in the doorway of the tool shed, the informal headquarters of the Marble Stone Cutters Symposium, July 18, 2024. He and his mother, Madeline, run the annual event.
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Not your average chain saw - this one slices up blocks of marble at the MARBLE/marble Stone Carving Symposium now in its 35th year.
MARBLE/MARBLE STONE CARVER SYMPOSIUM 240718
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An art treacher at Lebanon High School in New Hampshire, Jonathan Warren comes to the MARBLE/Marble Stone Carver Symposium every year during summer break. He creates whimsical sculptures of animals, including one here that will eventually be a Hippopotamus walking with a satchel, July 18, 2024.

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Joe Adams walks out of the tool shed at the MARBLE/Marble Stone Carver Symposium, July 18, 2004. A first-time participant in Marble, he’s an insurance agent from Centennial, reveling in camaraderie, education and creativity here that was a gift from his wife.
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Clouds of white marble dust drift around the site of the MARBLE/Marble Stone Carver Symposium, setting on leaves and the ground looking almost like snow.
MARBLE/MARBLE STONE CARVER SYMPOSIUM 240718
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Sarah Rosenthal hops down from a skid loader to position marble blocks on a palette to be delivered to a participant in the MARBLE/Marble Stone Carver Symposium, July 18, 2024.

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The MARBLE/Marble Stone Carver Symposium, and town, get their names from the historic Yule Marble quarry that started operation there in the late 19th century.
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Artists at work during the MARBLE/marble Stone Carving Symposium, July 18, 2024.
MARBLE/MARBLE STONE CARVER SYMPOSIUM 240718
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Everywhere you look on the grounds of the MARBLE/marble Stone Carving Symposium you can see art in various stages of creation and completion.

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