So much about life in the digital era is fleeting. This summer, Vermont teens have a chance to create something permanent through a unique free workshop offered at the Carving Studio & Sculpture Center in West Rutland. The two-week, hands-on session gives participants ages 13 to 19 the opportunity to design and carve a stone bench.
The Stone Bench Project launched in 2009 and has happened annually ever since, with a one-year break in 2020, during the pandemic. It grew out of a Peruvian exchange program at the Carving Studio & Sculpture Center, said executive director Carol Driscoll, and it’s still taught by master sculptor Nora Valdez, who helped initiate the project in Ayacucho, Peru. Prior stoneworking experience isn’t necessary — just the ability and desire to be part of a team.
This year’s workshop runs on weekdays from June 23 through July 3. In the first week, the teens will work together to design and model the bench and assemble its components. In the second week, they’ll carve it using pneumatic and hand tools.
The designs differ from year to year. “It grows out of what the kids are thinking of at the time,” Driscoll said. One group incorporated the issue of homelessness by carving houses and beds into the bench. Another showed Vermont under the sea, as it was millions of years ago. One memorable group incorporated a dove at one end of the bench and a gargoyle at the other, with their wings touching in the middle. It represented good and evil, Driscoll said.
Stone Bench Project participants come from a wide variety of backgrounds, she added. Some of the kids in that last group were clearly struggling in life, while others had more advantages. “It was pretty impressive, what they came up with,” she said.
When finished, the benches are installed in communities in the Rutland region. Towns that have received them over the years include Fair Haven, Middlebury and Poultney. This year’s will wind up in Manchester.
To apply, students should send a brief statement about how this experience will benefit them to [email protected] or CSSC Bench Project, PO Box 495, West Rutland, VT 05777. The deadline is May 30. Funding for the Stone Bench Project comes from the United Way of Rutland County, as well as members and friends of the Carving Studio & Sculpture Center, which provides workshops, residencies and events that draw on the rich industrial history of Vermont’s Marble Valley.
Younger kids can learn sculpting skills, too. The Carving Studio & Sculpture Center still has openings in its August summer camp for students ages 6 through 12.