1998

After I found the marble blocks and sheets of marble dumped in the woods, I remember talking to the people that I work with. I asked them what they thought. I found marble in the woods. Isn't that valuable? I mean it's marble - that sounds valuable. Even then, the idea of being a "Marble Sculptor" struck me. I had never met a marble sculptor, but that was not going to stop me from becoming one. I liked the idea of having an "outsider" relationship to art. I didn't think I could actually fail.

The place where I worked at the time was in the Operating Rooms at Johns Hopkins hospital. I remember going to work and asking the doctors, nurses and other staff in the O.R's what they thought. "I found a bunch of marble in the woods", I would tell them. What do you think I should make? It got some interesting conversations going. Each day, there would be more questions. "How much marble is out there? " What's the biggest piece that you found, or what is the biggest piece of marble that you think you can drag out of the woods by yourself? Note: there is still more out there to be discovered where I made my original discovery.
I had already started saving neurosurgery drill bits at the time when I first found the marble. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them. There was an attraction to them, that I would say is a "guy thing".

I was working as a Pediatric Operating Room nurse. Each day, it was my responsibility to help set up the operating room equipment, such as surgical drills. After each case was over, the drill bits had to be discarded. They were not to be re-sterilized. One example why that policy was created is "Mad Cow" or Jacob Kreutchfelds, (more on that perhaps, later). My plan was to take some of the very special "throw away after every case" drill bits used in brain surgery cases, and use them for "art".

I asked one doctor - Dr. Ben Carson, if he thought I might be able to put one of the surgery drill bits into my DREMEL drill and write my name in marble.