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STONE
Nashville Sculptor Tom Rice Carves a Legacy Photography and Story by John Guider
T
om Rice is busily preparing for a show of a lifetime. In 2017, the Customs House Museum in Clarksville, Tennessee, will be holding a retrospective of Tom’s work created during a career that spans almost fifty years as an artist.
Throughout that period Tom has worked in different mediums. The pieces that stand out the most for me are the sculptures that he has formed out of heavy blocks of solid stone. Working in stone is unique in both vision and difficulty. Beating on a rock for hours on end with nothing but a hammer and chisel is just plain hard. It is physically painful too. Stress injuries happen far too often. Ending up with a piece of art takes
NashvilleArts.com
Sleeping Bird, Recycled limestone baluster fragment, direct carved, 8” x 4.5” x 4.5” January 2O14 | 69