Fluffing My Feathers
Another owl sculpture by Taurai Mupaso. Here, the original shape of the stone is most distinct as large areas (the very top, bottom, also the sides) were left completely unworked and unpolished, while others were worked/carved only slightly (the body of the owl, the feathers), only as much as was needed to pronounce the animal form. In part, this is probably due to the difficult nature of working with cobalt stone, but Taurai's works generally seem to focus more on imaginative ways of bringing the animals shapes to light out of the original form of stones with a minimum amount of deep carving. In some places, such as the feathers or the bottom part where we see the feet of the owl standing on a veiny surface, one can almost not tell whether the stone had been worked on because the shapes seem so natural. They most certainly were, but Taurai really displays an amazing level of skill here, blending organic and artificial forms so seamlessly, to the point where at first glance, one might think that only the polished surfaces where the cobalt stone is most visible - the eyes, the beak and the stomach of the owl - had been worked on.
Taurai is part of a group of crafters who curve sculptures out of stone to create a unique art form praised to be perhaps the most important new art form to emerge from Africa this century." (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-10-03-tr-41822-story.html )
Taurai's predecessors are first generation masters like Takawira, Mteki, Mukomberanwa, Munyaradzi and Masaya. Collectors of Shona sculpture include the Rockefellers, England's Royal Family, the Rothschilds, the New York Museum of Modern Art and the Rodin Museum in Paris. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-10-03-tr-41822-story.html
A few of the established masters of Shona stone sculpture are reputed to earn as much as $250,000 a year but most earn far less. One master artist, Richard Mteki, whose earnings are at the high end, reportedly supports an extended family of 65 members with his sculpture. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-10-03-tr-41822-story.html
Height: 16 Width: 10 Depth: 4 inches
Chitungwiza Arts center (C.A.C) in Zenga 4 Zimbabwe.
*Material: This sculpture is carved out of cobalt sone, a beautiful variety of serpentine stone that is often purple or green with variations of yellow and white or brown/orange markings and stripes throughout. Cobalt is a relatively hard metal that closely resembles iron and nickel in appearance. It is quite fragile and relatively rare, making it quite a challenging stone to work with, however, for sculptors who have the necessary skill, the bright colour and the variety of textures can allow for the production of stunning works. It is mined in the Chiweshe area of northern Zimbabwe. *Technique: Shona sculptures are made strictly with hand, no power tools are used at any stage of the process and generally, everything is created free-form, ie. there are no preliminary sketches. The tools consist of hammers, points, chisels, rasps and chasing hammers, and the finishing of each sculpture takes almost as long as the process of creating it. The smooth effect is achieved by "washing" the sculpture, using wet and dry sandpaper and if the artist wants a high polish on the stone, the stone is heated and covered with wax (for a more detailed description of the sculpting process, see ID 48)