You can find more examples of Karin Sprague’s work at her website.
Artscape producer James Baumgartner met with Sprague at her workshop and studio, in a small wooden building behind her home in the North Scituate woods.
Karin Sprague: Today we’ve got everybody cutting slate. It’s a beautiful black slate that we import from the UK.
NARR: On the first floor, three stone carvers are carefully tapping away.
NARR: Javier Alfonso is chiseling bold, capital roman letters that look so precise that they could have been made by machine.
Javier Alfonso: And something that we try to keep here is the look, the chisel as it cuts the letter and leaving the chisel marks, that gives the idea and the look that it was handmade.
NARR: Michael Brahce is working on a stone for a couple who were both composers. The score for one of their works is carved into the slate. And Michael is carefully chiseling the outlines of soundwaves into the stone.
NARR: Sprague will work in granite or marble if it’s required by a cemetery, but when she can, she prefers to carve in slate.
Sprague: The chisel responds to the slate with every mark you make. The chisel and mallet in the stone, into slate will create a mark. And today even, you can walk into some of our oldest New England cemeteries and look at a stone, a slate stone that’s 350 years old and it looks like it was carved yesterday. You can still see the chisel marks from the carver. So if it’s great quality slate and it’s cared for lovingly in the in the cemetery. It’s a stunning artifact.
NARR: Sprague says it can take hundreds of hours to complete one stone monument.
Karin Sprague: It’s about a year and a half. Sometimes two years, sometimes a little more than that. And it’s not done until it’s finished and it just takes time.
NARR: It’s clear from just looking at the workshop that what Sprague makes is very different from most contemporary grave markers you would see at a cemetery. But it’s not just the carving process that’s different.
Sprague: We’ll meet together first in my home, I’ll make you a brunch, whomever is coming for this meeting, and we’ll sit at my table, I’ll light the candles, I’ll feed you. And then we’ll transition out here to the studio. You’ll meet the team, whoever’s here carving that day, you’ll see work that’s underway, I’ll reveal to you costs of everything you see, you’ll see different materials. And then we’ll sit here in what I call the upper room. And I’ll say, you know, show me some pictures of your husband, show me some pictures of your daughter. And then I say, and tell me about them. And then after time has passed, I’ll say tell me more.… And it’s through their story of how they lived their life that I somehow want to translate that into stone.
After a family has left, immediately upon their leaving, I will come back into the room and sit. And oftentimes the candle that I’ve lit at the start of our meeting is still going. And I will start to just do some rough sketches, I need to just pour out what I’ve heard. Just laying down some concepts over and over and various… and then I’ll let that go. And I’ll go for a walk.
NARR: As a child, Sprague loved to walk through the old cemeteries of New England and she was particularly drawn to the cursive lettering used on the grave markers. After briefly studying photography in art school, she returned to her love of lettering and set up a sign shop on Block Island, often carving wooden signs by hand. In 1991, she met David Klinger, who was carving in wood and in stone in a way that reminded Sprague of those old New England gravestones.
Sprague: When I walked into David’s studio, and I saw letters hand-carved, V-cut in slate. I realized wow, there’s somebody actually doing this right this very minute. … He said, “Lay out some letters that have curves and straights and I’ll teach you to carve a letter in stone.” And I went home on fire. … And when he offered me an opportunity, I took it and so that next day, my mother in law was dear enough to watch my six month old and I had spent the night before wondering, “Hmm, what shall I carve? I love the uppercase G. Oh I Really lovely uppercase D, what am I going to carve?” And so then I put an O there, and my first commission was God.
NARR: In the early 90s, Sprague was raising her children and carving the occasional sign in wood or stone until her father-in-law died in 1996.
Sprague: it was several weeks later, I remember sitting with my mother in law and just — we’re talking about Fran, my father in law. And I said, “You know, Terry, I have I feel a very clear leading to carve his gravestone. Will you let me and can I do it in Slate? And can we make it look like the 18th century?” … And she said without hesitation, “Yes.” … And I set about carving my father-in-law’s gravestone without a whole lot of experience, but a whole lot of love, slowly. And at that point, I had a three year old, a four year old, and a six year old. So it took me, it took me about two years, maybe a year and a half to carve his stone.
NARR: The Providence Journal wrote an article about Sprague carving the stone for her father-in-law and soon she was hearing from people who wanted her to create a grave marker for their loved one.
Sprague: and each time the phone rang, I’d say Well, thank you. Thank you for calling. Thank you for loving what you read and what you saw. But you do know that’s the only stone I’ve ever made. And they said yes, but we love the way you made it and why you made it because you loved your father in law so much and it really looks looks great, Karen.
NARR: And in the 25 years since that article ran, many more people have called — people who aren’t deterred by what can be a slower and more expensive process.
Sprague: Some have called here, because they looked at the regular monuments that were out there, surrounding their loved one’s grave, and they said, You know, I don’t want that. I don’t know what I want. But I don’t want that. … What do you — what do you imagine seeing when you come to the cemetery? And often they’ll say, “Well, you know, I just, I just want to, I want to touch something that’s beautiful.”
NARR: A small number of clients come to Sprague to design their own monument, but most come to her after the death of a loved one. When she meets with them in her studio, she says that there can be grief in the room.
Sprague: It’s not something I was trained. You know, I think there are probably some proper ministers out there that have gone through proper theology training to understand how to minister to those that are grieving. … And I asked a minister one time, you know, is there anything you could help me do better when I’m sitting with a family who’s grieving? And she said, Karen, you’re already doing it. The most important thing you can do is listen and ask them to tell you more.
For The Public’s Radio, I’m James Baumgartner.
Got a question, comment or suggestion for Artscape? Email us at arts@thepublicsradio.org.
