Paul Bloch

"I began carving in 1974 and have always worked directly (without a model) utilizing the volume of the material and maximizing the limits of the stone.

My sculpture is improvisational -- my first inspiration was jazz. In my early years in Berkeley, where so many of my colleagues were doing additive sculpture in metal or ceramics, I learned to treat the stone like a piece of chewing gum which I could pull, push and bend in any direction.

Twelve years in Carrara, Italy honed my skills and Italy's artistic heritage clarified my vision. I carved mellifluous musical compositions in Marble. The balance and tension between negative and positive space and the infinite with the finite were -- and still are -- my sculptural concerns.

I've also been rendering imaginary planet surfaces first inspired by satellite photographs of other planets and their moons. these pieces are fascinating to me because of their micro-macroscopic ambiguity.

Stone is a fundamental material. As a man and artist, it is my goal to transform that substance into beauty and give something back to the cosmos."

  - Paul Bloch