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Adrian Smith has been stone carving since 1992 when he first began sculpting granite stones which he found in the woods of New Hampshire. He was immediately drawn to carving in stone and continues to be for its natural, enduring quality and the focus of mind derived from working with a mallet and chisel. Adrian's formal training took place in Kathmandu, Nepal where he had the great fortune to study under a master carver for three years. During that time he followed a traditional approach to carving Buddhist statues. The rigorous formal training he underwent in those years has lent itself to the balanced lines and clean accents of his current work. For more about his study in Nepal please see Training below. Adrian's carving continues to be inspired by his love of animals and the natural world. Carved in slate, the animals are lent the quality of fossils while they also come to life with alert expressions of watchful presence and quiet dignity. Adrian lives and works between Gray, Maine and Matunuck, Rhode Island and still travels frequently to Nepal.

Training The following is an account of his training under a Nepalese master in Kathmandu. Within a week after graduating from college I found myself looking out over the Himalayas from an airplane window as we descended into Kathmandu. My world was about to change forever and I already sensed it. Kathmandu is a magical place with much of its history still alive in the intricate stone carvings found through temples all over the city and in the artisans who still sustain an ancient but vibrant living artistic lineage. I was very fortunate to meet a master stone carver whose family has a continuing history of being patronized by the Royal Family of Nepal and whose ancestors were the architects and sculptors of many of Kathmandu's great stone temples. I soon found myself sitting on a straw mat on the floor of his factory trying to emulate the other Nepali apprentice carvers who gripped the stones with their toes in front of them as they leaned forward and carved from all sides. I think it was amusing to them to see me struggle so much in what for someone who has grown up without chairs is a most natural position. Determination and some yoga got me somewhat reconciled to this position, but mostly it was the absorption of carving which allowed me to forget my contortions until I broke my concentration and could hardly straighten my legs, let alone stand up. When my knees and back had had enough I would leave my fellow carvers where they had been sitting when I arrived and where they remained carving long after I left. My training began with the delivery of three roughly hewn stones which I was told to "make plane" - to make into perfectly proportioned rectangular blocks before I began carving statues. Three months later I managed to accomplish what would have taken a few strokes of a masonry saw- a block which matched the smooth edge of a ruler on all six sides. Knowing that the work could be easily executed by a machine made the process feel aggravatingly slow and tedious, but I knew my patience and determination were being tested to ascertain whether I was worth teaching. After so much work only to create pieces to cut into again, I was itching to begin carving what I was most interested to learn- a statue of the Buddha. When I was told I would carve all three blocks into Bimsen, the deity of commerce, and then two more before carving new blocks and then maybe Buddha statues, I decided I had to run the risk of coming across as an impatient student and insist on a more direct approach. "Everyone starts with Bimsen" I was told. Buddha is in fact the hardest of all statues to carve. Unlike other statues where mistakes in proportion can be concealed under the folds of clothing, the Buddha's simplicity and anciently defined exact proportions leave little room for error. "After 5 years one is ready to carve Buddha statues" he said. I tried to convince my teacher that I might not have that long and he could perhaps make an exception for me since everything else about my presence in his factory was already unconventional. He took time to consider, for as I later found out, his father was wary of his having taken on a western student and disapproved of my interest in learning to carve Buddha statues as it would involve learning the family's carefully guarded dimensional drawings which had insured their livelihood for generations. Fortunately my teacher is a broad minded person, and surely also saw that I did not present much of a threat to the family industry, so he conceded. I am indebted to him for his patience in taking on such an itinerant and stubborn student. I learned a great deal watching his hands move in fluid effortless coordination as the figure emerged from the stone. Although my work now is quite different from what I studied (and I choose to carve standing up!), that training gave me the foundation to carve virtually anything in stone. I have continued to visit my teacher in Kathmandu over the past 9 years and he has come to visit to the states and has shown his work in Boston. At left is one of the Buddha statues I carved during my apprenticeship.

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