Radiate: Tristan’s blog

Like I said in the last post, I don’t know if this counts as “art” or not, but my recent artistic pursuit has been chiseling rocks. I suppose I’m returning to my roots in some way, since my last name is Mason.

Our creative arts team at church was searching for an interesting way to highlight this message series. We decided to make a rock garden that would remind people of the attributes & characteristics of God we have been discussing and add visual interest to the garden area outside the church entrance. Each week a new rock appears with that week’s word engraved on it.

My friend Connie and I have been chiseling words into the rocks. The first step is to pencil a word on the rock. Second, we use a thin chisel to form the grooves of the letters:

Third, we use one corner of a wide flat chisel (sitting on the table in the pictures) to widen the letters and make them more uniform. After chiseling, the rock looks like this:

Finally, Connie seals the rock, stains the inside of the letters to make them darker, applies a faux finish to add some color, and protects the rock with a special varnish. Each finished rock’s color is different.

When the garden is done and we’ve arranged the rocks, I’ll post a picture.