Dreadnought —
by Martin Cooney

Description:

The two standout distinguishing features that catch people’s immediate attention when they see Dreadnought are the dramatically contrasting surfaces and the surprise they exhibit when a quick circumnavigation reveals the skewed silhouette when viewed head on – a quite unexpected revelation given that there is no indication of such a dramatic lean when seen from the side, the profile of which that gives this piece its signature shape… that of a battle-hardened fighting ship plowing confidently through a giant Atlantic swell. People often comment that they like the fact that I left the top (or upper decks) of Dreadnought rough but the truth is that the formation of craggy broken rock that greets the eye is in actual fact a very rare occurrence and is a feature I’m able to repeat on very few of my marble carvings. The reason being that granite left to itself will never look this way (especially not in the rare circumstances that has it embedded in marble)… or not for long, as the forces required to shatter the stone in such a manner occur very rarely in nature, and when they do erosion (we’re talking geological time here) soon wears down the sharp angled features to the more familiar patters we find littered around the rockslides wherein they usually occur. And if unfettered granite is split by sheer force it will tend to break smoothly along its swirling grain. So when I applied my plug and feathers in creating The Maiden Collection and split a ten ton slab in order to create the 41 individual carvings the granite wasn’t so much split as pulled apart, a feat that required every ounce of the quite inconceivable pressure exerted by these wedges to pry apart the granite from its all-enveloping cloak of marble. The greyish matter that can be seen in many of the collection’s sculpture is all composed of granite such as this… but freeing it so perfectly from its cloak of marble to reveal it in such a manner is altogether another matter. The signature slope is simply a happenstance of the splitting process that not only adds a touch of whimsy but serves to portray the fierce nature of the effect of waves the size of large buildings crashing sidelong into a defiant battleship with other, more pressing, matters on its mind. As with all my marble Collection sculpture this plucky carving has its Serial Number, along with my Mark of authenticity, securely etched on the underside of its base.