Texas often conjures images of cowboys, cattle ranches, oil wells and wide-open spaces.
But if you’re local stone sculptor Horacio Esteban, Texas is the land of big… big stone and big art.
According to a release by the Esteban gallery, the sculptor was the guest of a private annual symposium hosted by the TexaStone in Midland Texas 1-5 May.
‘This was a great opportunity to see other techniques, new tools and materials and work in a group of sculptors, with a variety of styles’ he said.
The artists came mainly from Santa Fe. During the week-long annual event, participants were invited to work in the Texas limestone quarry, creating and sharing trade secrets with fellow sculptors.
‘The symposium presented me with the opportunity to network, and be exposed in a setting that truly fuels my art,’ Mr. Esteban said.
Each artist selected prime cuts of stone and fashioned a sculpture accordingly.
‘There was everything from high- to low-relief sculptures to more three-dimensional carvings. My piece was a block of Texas limestone that weighed about one ton, and my sculpture was that of a turtle hatchling,’ the sculptor said.
Mr. Esteban said he felt connected to the idea of creating the hatching for more than the obvious reasons. ‘I felt connected to this piece’ he said. ‘Here I was, this island boy in the middle of a stone quarry, filled with stone artists, and I felt reborn in that moment’.
For Mr. Esteban, events like that one provide the chance to work with other stone sculptors and share knowledge and skills, the release continued.
‘There’s a high degree of inspiration here in Cayman because of the natural beauty and the people, but the knowledge needed to attain the level of mastery in stone sculpting isn’t here.’
After the symposium, Mr. Esteban presented the 4-foot hatchling to the owners of TexaStone. The piece now occupies a dedicated space on the ranch in the same studio of its creation.
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