Tulipano | Greg Tonozzi

Greg Tonozzi is a sculptor based in Marble Colorado. He was one of the founders of the Marble, Marble Symposium and has been carving Marble since the 1970s.

Having an interest in stone cutting brought my attention to the supreme stone carvers; the Egyptians, who felt that craftsmen and artists belong in the same category. I would slant heavily towards the skill of adapting unique techniques to cut stone. The use of diamond abrasives, pneumatic and hydraulic tools, huge core drills, and wire saws keep me engaged. The technology involved enhances the delicate way stone has to be treated.

The beautiful green marble are small amounts of the mineral serpentine. Through contact metamorphism olivine reacted with ground water to form serpentine. This is a very rare stone not normally quarried in the white Colorado marble that's currently being mined in abundance. The gray stone is a form of very hard quartz. The white marble is calcium carbonate. This series of marble sculptures are influenced by the beauty of the universe and nature.

Abstract forms are a real challenge. Balance and volume and the tools that help to form and sculpt, the beauty of the stone; all blend together to make a rough stone transform again and again until the creative process is finally satisfied. Metamorphic process's have been happening to this stone for billions of years. My hands are now part of these changes. I owe a debt to the miners quarrying the stone, and the geological formations that blessed me with such beautiful stone.

I am honored to create this work. I would like to think these sculptures are a small interlude to be enjoyed in the history of these stones.