Barn Martian

Description

“Barn Martian” is a quirky, abstract representation of an owl. “Barn” comes from barn owl, a species with a decidedly heart-shaped face; “Martian” is a throwback to 60’s era depictions of aliens. The left side view suggests a satellite dish or research telescope peering into space. It also shows an unintentional similarity to E.T.

Barn Martian is big… like, a gazillion pounds big. More accurately, the raw piece of stone that it was carved from is estimated to have weighed approximately 750 pounds… using math (yikes!)

The finished weight is still a mystery. Perhaps as much as 50% of the weight was chiseled off during the month of August 2017. That’s right, in the dog days of Texas heat. So the finished weight is probably 3-400 pounds. It may be closer to 525.

Sitting on a 2′ welded steel cube, Barn Martian stands at 5′ 2″ tall. The stone sculpture’s dimensions are 38″ tall, 18″ wide, and 12″ deep.

This is my first large-scale stone sculpture. I think the next one needs to be bigger… say 10,000 pounds minimum starting size. The only problem? Where to put 2 tons of dust! Well, that’s not the only problem. Rounding up enough people to help lift it… or borrow a crane, that could be considered problem #2.

The last picture in the product gallery shows a better close-up of the “freckles” that cover the entire piece. These freckles showcase an interesting feature of the cordova cream limestone, its varying density. The spots are actually super-smooth areas, glassy smooth, next to the equally smooth, yet porous surrounding crystals. If you rub your hand over them, it feels like it goes from smooth to rough to smooth again, simply due to the pores in the stone.

Barn Martian is currently on loan to the City of Georgetown, Texas, and lives on the town square, at the corner of 8th and Main. In November of 2018, the city will return the sculpture to me, at which point, I’m considering making it my hood ornament. Might cut down on the overall gas mileage, but wouldn’t that be cool?!?

Big stone sculpture is not the kind of thing you add to your shopping cart on a website and purchase- but in a list of my products, not having a place for Barn Martian would be a huge oversight! If you’d like to talk to me more about the piece, head on over to the contact page and shoot me a note.