Move over, Michelangelo

From nine blocks of Indiana limestone, a Virginia sculptor is carving a nearly 11-foot tall effigy comprising the wildlife of the North Carolina Outer Banks.

Culpeper resident and Strasburg native Gary Colson, 42, earned the Outer Banks commission — his third major commission — more than 20 years after first discovering his affinity for stone carving.

Colson teaches high school art in Fauquier County, but perfects his own talents at home in his studio. Working in a detached garage behind his house in White Shop where he lives with his wife, Cindy, Colson is in the midst of creating his Outer Banks totem pole.

Sitting in a saturated lime green living room adorned with his sculptures, busts and paintings, Colson said he initially intended to become “the next Picasso,” but found his way to sculpture after a class in college.

“I went to be a great painter,” Colson said, his longish brown hair emerging from beneath a cap. “I didn’t go for sculpture. But in the sculpture classes, I was one of the few people who understood what was going on. And it was an innate understanding, to take away and see something in the center of a block.”

To further study his passion, Colson took time from work this fall and spent nearly two months in Tuscany, Italy, where white marble tops the mountains like snow. In a town smaller than Culpeper, Colson did as the Romans do and studied the stone carving industry where it is most famous.

“What makes it desirable to go is to learn how the business is done,” he said. “It’s an old business; it’s old as dirt.”
Though Italy’s marble is by far his stone of choice, back in the United States Colson often employs Indiana limestone and Virginia soapstone. His main tools include a soft steel hammer and chisel, as well as pneumatic hammers and tools.

Fluid and rough at the same time, Colson’s style is clearly defined in his many works posted on his Web site and displayed around his home. With mostly commission work, he said he tried to keep his work as recognizable as possible while still adding his signature.

“It’s representational figurative work that’s stylized,” he said of his pieces. “It’s abstract, but it’s more a stylized form of realism. It’s not cubistic, but I go for geometric angles; I like flat planes.”

In his studio on a recent chilly, rainy afternoon, Colson showed off the work on his totem pole to date. The work is in six stages, with the nine stones eventually connecting via steel rods and mor-tar.

With his air hammer, he tweaked a few parts of one half of his osprey nest, which he researched online. The totem pole features an osprey in a nest, pelicans, snakes in tall grass, egrets and a crab; it is completed with a loggerhead sea turtle and eggs.

Colson set out to research the flora and fauna of the Outer Banks, which he quickly realized does not include much. So he focused on wildlife instead. The commission is for the Dale County Master Gardeners, a club that maintains about 10 acres in Kill Devil Hills, N.C. around the library and a retirement home.

His initial versions of the sculpture came in the form of a watercolor rendering and clay models. Colson plans to complete the final sculpture — three feet wide by nearly 11 feet tall — in August, after which it will head to North Carolina.

Colson received his blocks of stone from Indiana over spring break and will have spent nearly two years on the project upon completion.

“The truth is, you could spend five years on this sculpture,” he said. “It’s going to be quite a spectacle come July.”
This is the first project where he has lifted large amounts of weight and required some help from his peers. With an I-beam, a hoist and some scaffolding, he made it work.

“It’s very simple stuff but it works,” he said. “It’s very slow. It’s great if you have a forklift but if you don’t, it’s still possible. They built the pyramids.”

Check him out
Local stone carver Gary Colson is online at garycolson.net.