Stone is the primordial and most prevalent medium of the human race. It was the original material of habitation in caves and stone huts and the substance that gave shape to our greatest monuments and places of worship. Everyday-stone eventually gave way to the refinement and elegance of marble, and the ever-presence and durability of granite, but stone is stone and it has served humanity in all its quests including the artistic. There are shapes and spirits in stone, there are gods and heroes and common folk and ideas and poetry in stone; it can be claimed that all that is dear and all that is feared in every aspect of the human experience begins in stone and can be expressed by variously manipulating it, carving it, shaping it, taming it, building with it, but never totally conquering it because it is more powerful and all-encompassing even than the infinite capacity of the human mind.

Stone is alive, seething with images and idols impatient to be discovered and come forth, to inform and enhance our intellect, to enrich our lives, to remind us that somewhere in the depths of our misspent lives there is a quality that is irreproachable and pure and all-powerful.

Stone is an endless source of inspiration, because its possibilities are without limit; they are eternal. Something that is carved in stone or constructed from stone will live forever; it will in some fashion, in at least some fragmentary way, survive for millennia to proclaim to all future generations of irascible, fragile, ephemeral humankind that something nobler and more permanent than our loftiest aspirations lives all around us if only we were able for a moment to forgo our petty concerns and look around us in search of the divine.