Paul Chase Galleries

The Music of the Stone Horses

The “music” of the horse inspired me to visualize their design, passion, movement and beauty. The “symphony” of the horse captured me, invited me, called to me until I allowed the creativity within me to find expression, not in painting, but in stone. Music had compelled me to create hundreds of paintings of guitars and sculptures inspired by the “symphony” or design of the guitar. Much of that art is still in Nashville TN at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel.

My actual background with live horses has been brief encounters. I lived in Montana for some years and kept a few horses and a pony, mostly for my children. My wife was a rider and encouraged me to go to a cattle and guest ranch where we experienced a close connection with the horse.

My work with guitar art evolved to stone carvings. While in Tucson, Arizona I visited the Cochise Marble Co. Quarry. The owner allowed me to take all the chunks of marble I wanted for free. As a thank you to him I carved my first stone horse, “The Bronc.” I wasn’t hooked completely at that point with horse head carvings but that was the transition from the art of the guitar to the sculpture of the horse.

A fellow sculptor gave me a large piece of Tennessee Red Marble that I sat

outside near my studio and waited for the stone to speak, to “see” what was in the rock. A few months later it was so obvious, the marble said “ I will be a horse” and I went to work. That was the birth of “The Prince” a dynamic presentation of design, movement, music and unmistakably a beautiful horse.

I fell in love with the red cedar marble from the Tennessee Marble Co in Friendsville. I have carved many “Stone Horses” and several guitar players hands from the stone. Of course, as I have traveled across the country I have acquired marble from Colorado, Arizona, Vermont as well as Tennessee. Each stone speaks to me differently guiding me through the design. I transform the blocks or boulders of marble into “Stone Horses” with tools used by sculptors over the centuries: chisels, hammers, mallets, rasps and files, as well as power tools to carve and shape the stone.

I love to “release” the horse from the rough stone, often leaving the organic textures of the rock to enhance the motion and music of the horse. At other times I transform the features of the horse head into abstract patterns and geometric shapes further enhanced by contrasting a polished surface with the rough texture of the stone.

The Stone Horses galloped to Leiper’s Fork TN and found a home in Dawn Ann Billings shop “Moo Country.”  Dawn kindly cares for them and makes sure they are comfortable and happy.

For more information about the artist Paul Chase, his “Stone Horses” and more of his art check out www.paulchase.com