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From the studio
Drilling a black granite base
The part nobody looks at, which holds everything up.
A base is not a plinth. It is the other half of the sculpture, and if it is doing its job nobody notices it at all.
Black granite is hard, heavy and slow to work, which is exactly what you want underneath something that has to look weightless. Drilling it is a matter of pressure, water and refusing to hurry. Push and the bit glazes. Rush and the stone cracks, and a cracked base is a wasted afternoon and a wasted block.
I use foundry brick and found steel for some of them, and granite for others. The choice is about what the piece is saying as much as what it needs structurally — forgotten industrial material under a sail reads differently than polished stone does.
Everything above it depends on this joint being right.