“I really rarely find someone who carves stone,” Oglesbay said. “A lot of people will putz around or use machinery, but people who carve it originally with hammers and chisels and use math and come up with the exact product are hard to find.”There are 50 to 90 stone carvers in the United States, according to Walter Arnold, treasurer and past president of the national Stone Carvers Guild, who says the number depends on what standard you apply: "if you limit to those good enough by 1913 standards to have held down a job in a good shop back then, the current numbers are significantly lower."
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I'm making a new tag for this, artisans. I almost went with one of my old tags: art, sculpture, architecture, careers. Those are all almost there, but they are off in a way that amplifies the very problem the article is talking about. I also have a tag I'm not making a tag for this, but I could make a second new tag I am making a new tag for this. Having made the new tag, I wish I could go back and add it to all the old posts where it could have been used. I'd like to be able to see what has come up over the years, discussing the highly skilled work of those who produce beautiful things but do not think of themselves as artists. Or perhaps some of these people do think of themselves as artists (and maybe some painters and sculptors don't like to think of themselves as artists). I'd be interested in pulling together all that old material. If only I'd had better blogging craftsmanship.
UPDATE: The Blogger software changed and tags stopped working properly when I had more than 5,000 of them. Systematically eliminating tags, I got rid of "I'm not making a tag for this" and "I am making a new tag for this." So don't go looking for that now!
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