Caroline Ruizeveld  

sculptor, The Netherlands.

Last summer I worked in a studio for three months sculpting marble in PietraSanta in Northern Italy. This area is where the world famous Carrara marble comes from...

Since I was forced to start with my own ideas the forms I sculpted ended up being freer and more stylistic. I felt I was starting to understand the stones and developed a feeling of dialogue between the stone and myself.
In Zimbabwe I learnt to respect the stones and it wasn’t strange to talk to the stone. Here in the West they think you are crazy if you do.

I slept in at camp site and socialized in the evenings. Everyone here had some connection with the marble and so it was an ideal meeting point for sculptors from all walks of life. There were the technically skilled who spent their days making exact copies of Michelangelo’s David and many who worked with heavy machinery. I prefer to sculpt without the use of machines, especially for small sculptures, otherwise the sculpting becomes a sawing into the stone rather than making contact with it as part of the creative process. I learnt a lot and found my time here very inspiring. What was the best part was waking up with the thought that I would go and sculpt the whole day without any interruptions.

Please contact me via Arts Dialogue about any residency possibilities in your part of the world.

Excerpt from a Letter printed in the June 1999, Arts Dialogue.

The third part of my sculpting triglogy ends with working on the island of Bali for 3 months, ending in February 1999.
...here the stones used for sculpting, cut from a riverbed, were damp, soft, full of holes and not to be trusted...
In short I had to completely adjust all my ideas about sculpting to this new situation and this new type of stone, using tools borrowed from one of my co-sculptors there.
My next barrier was language. Not one of the 14 men I worked with spoke any English, so it was hard to explain that I had not come to copy Balinese sculptures but to be inspired by them in making my own work which was more abstract...

Excerpt from a Letter printed in the December 1999, Arts Dialogue, pages 4-5.