Stone is like fire:
Consuming, comforting, wild and powerful.
I open up stone in search of my own instincts.
--Suzanne Nees

Pure and elemental, stone warms the senses with compelling material beauty. Like the sight of slow, gentle flames in the darkness, stone draws you in and wraps around your consciousness, consuming the attention with physical grace. That is what it is like to carve stone, and that is what my work describes.

I carve stone in order to set myself to stone's rhythm. Stone reworks your perceptions of time profoundly. It will not meet you halfway--you will either slow down, or you will be sent back. This rhythm--this quieting pulse--is what I am looking for when I open up stone. As I carve, I listen carefully for this pulse, paying the closest possible attention to how the stone is guiding my behavior; setting myself to stone's rhythm.  And to see this realm of patience, this graceful abundance of time, even in a stolen moment, is the epitome of comfort.

Pavement, cubicles, alarm clocks, and the fierce logic of the computer will never tame us. No matter how fast-paced and far removed from nature our lives become, we will never lose our basic, undeniable hunger for the things that nourish our instincts; the smells and tastes and sounds and textures that prove that we are a part of nature and of eternity. We need to touch dirt, watch fire, smell grass, and witness the way, for example, a piece of stone falls apart. Deprived of this information, we are like orphans, left alone in a sterile world just short of totally forgetting that the passionate beauty of the world is ours for the asking.

My work is an explanation of the way stone feels. Stone communicates with the sense of touch in a powerful way, feeding the senses what they truly need. When I work in stone, I carve directly, intuitively; so that I may understand and evoke stone's true character as authentically as possible.  My work is intended to call attention to nature's extravagant generosity in sharing its beauty and sanity; it is meant to convey the message that in spite of everything that the manmade world may indicate to the contrary, nature still owns us.

--Suzanne Nees