Studio Process:
HAND CARVED STONE
A conversation is the best way to start any project. Meeting in person is ideal, but due to distance and or time, or even Global Pandemics, modern technology offers a variety of communication methods which also work quite well.
After meeting and communicating, ideas are explored, budgets are discussed and sketches are produced to clarify and expand the design conversation. When a final design is agreed upon, the proper material is acquired and the initial sketches are turned into full scale drawings which can then, with confidence and finality, be carved into stone.
Lettering for inscriptions is typically custom designed here in the Studio* and drawn with calligraphy pens or brushes. The stone is carved by hand, with a mallet and chisel; a slow process by modern standards, but one that yields beautiful results and offers stunning detail and flexibility.
The majority of the darker colored memorial and tombstones in the gallery section of this website are carved in slate. If you look through the photos you will also see memorials and art projects which use granite, limestone and marble. Each material has its own unique and beautiful characteristics which may or may not be appropriate to the unique requirements of a project.
No project is too large or small to have a conversation about. I hope you will be in touch.
Sincerely,
Adam
*A note on letter styles: any lettering or ornament that can be drawn, can be carved.
PAINTING:
Spontaneity
ARTIST STATEMENT
My paintings are about presence, a "world within a world", an interior expression of human experience, a look behind the veil of human assumptions and judgements, these paintings come from a place of experience rather mind [intellect].
The process is immediate, sometimes forms are used to direct paint; found objects become brushes. Though the action is often quick, it is also deliberate; works are layered or revisited over days & weeks - colors and forms build to create their own expressive language environment.
BIOGRAPHY
WESTERLY • RHODE ISLAND | b. 1973
WANAKENA • NEW YORK | 1977 - 1991
Adam Heller began oil painting in the early 1980's. His first teacher, Bulgarian American artist Mimi Keith, would take small groups of students for long walks to make charcoal studies of their small corner of the vast Adirondack wilderness. Mimi's humble house was her studio, the smells of turpentine, oil paints, cigarette and woodsmoke, mingling nicely with the occasional pot of soup bubbling in the background.
NORFOLK • CONNECTICUT | 2014 - present
Adam Paul Heller received a BA in Studio Art from the University of Vermont and is known for his work in hand carved stone. Among other things, Adam spent three formative years at the John Stevens Shop (Est. 1705) in Newport, Rhode Island, where the tradition of hand brushed lettering, calligraphy, and hand carved stone remains intact. Adam's lettering and stone carving commissions range from custom hand carved family memorial stones to larger fine art projects and inscriptions executed throughout the US and Europe.