The Transcendent marble
Maria de Faykod carves her structure directly. She does not improvise and the first chisel strike determines the last.
This technique calls for extreme precision. The true creative work is the very design of the statue. The sculpture is present in the artist's mind and visualised both as a whole and in small details.
Contemplation through the marble
Marble is a material admirably suited to creativity; it presents two different but real dimensions. Firstly it has the geological history of the petrified organic substance, but it also encloses the light – a spiritual memory of the living -, constituted by the totality of these innumerable crystals.
Every time I go to Carrara in Italy, in the midst of the immaculate marble mountains, I experience the same sensation that I felt the first time. I always come across the marble which has been “eroded” for me and in which “the sculpture is already present”.
Several tons are then transported by lorry to my studio in Aups (Var), as was the case for the seventeen Stations of the Cross for which nearly one hundred tons of marble had to be extracted.
The process of creation
Creation is a journey from the solid to the subtle, from the matter to the spiritual. The shapeless takes form and the spiritual body becomes visible in the matter.
The process of creation is a perpetual thrust towards Beauty, a desire for God. Art and spirituality are indissociable.
The most important step of the creation is the moment when the marble arrives in my studio. Before starting the work, I see into the marble; I already see the sculpture within it, but what I see above all is an impetus, a call, something which emanates from it and transports me. I feel my spirit entering the marble until it reflects, as in a mirror and in a particular way, my interior vision.
A mysterious sensation which is beyond my control gives birth to a sort of energy in me and which gives me the strength to “free the sculpture” enclosed in the bloc of marble.
After this time of visualisation, the direct chiselling process commences with the rough hewing of the sculpture. I outline the shapes leaving a margin of several centimetres before tackling the details.
The next step is even more interesting as I start sculpting the details.
It is a very precise process and a progressive approach towards the final work whilst respecting the veins of the marble. The marble is a relatively hard material but at the same time very fragile. Little by little the figures take shape and my initial vision begins to appear.
Then the polishing process enables me to refine the features and emphasise the details. To finish I enhanced the crystals, in order to bring light and transparency to the marble,
