Q & A Friday: Clay to Stone

One of the most frequently asked questions I get in the studio is “how do you get this from clay to stone?” It’s a long answer that usually involves me getting out a diagram, an Italian stone carver, and a math textbook to explain it all. So, I thought that I would try to explain it here…

Read More

How the Studio Got Done, Part I

After nearly a year of searching for a studio in town, I finally decided to work in my own back yard. I have a small cottage with an even smaller one-car garage. Well, it was a one car garage back when cars could fit in a ten-foot wide space. Even my compact Mazda 5 can…

Read More

Gathering and Building

My father is coming out to Pennsylvania this weekend to help me transform an old, ugly garage into a fancy, new studio. We have to secure the foundation, move support beams on the trusses, add more outlets, install two windows and a door, insulate, drywall on the ceiling and paneling on the walls, trim it out, install…

Read More

One Shovelful at a Time

Reprinted from my old blog, Nine Tons of Marble, on May 9, 2009. My uncle tells this beautiful parable about achieving a monumental task. Many years ago, he and his young son had to lay a sewer line in the back yard. They had to dig a forty-foot trench by hand, too poor to afford…

Read More

Placeless

I am a person who talks a great deal about Place. Perhaps I’ve read too many Wendell Berry books. Or perhaps I’m on my fifteenth address in thirty-four years. I am placeless. My studio follows my same pattern. I moved into my first outside-of-school studio in 2001 in Frederick, Maryland. It was a tiny space…

Read More

Hempel Studio News

Welcome to Hempel Studio News, a source for a glimpse into the studio as well as commentary on art in the news, information for collectors, tidbits from the history of art, thoughts about community building through the arts, and other musings about the aesthetic life.

So glad you are here!

Read More