About the Artist: Merv Thompson

My Grandfather was a stone-carver. I knew about it but it held little interest for me. I was busy buying land and building cabins.  And then along came a 12,000 acre Sonoma County, Cazadero CA forest fire [1978] which took everything.  

 

This is when the art story started getting good. Soon after I was at a Sebastapol CA flea market when I noticed some odd looking tools, I asked what they were and the seller said,  "granite carving chisels" I asked "how much?" He said, "$5.00".  On the way home I picked up a 'likely looking stone'; When I hit the stone with a stone hammer and a point [a stone chisel], a feeling of 'I'm home ecstasy - electricity' shot through the stone, the chisel, the hammer, my hand, arm, shoulder, heart and both legs right into the earth.

 

I never looked back, in '82 and '83 I was studying stone sculpture In Pietrasanta, Italy under the tutelage of Emilio Burratti, a master who sang opera, painted in oils and carved stone. By 1991 I was one of two lead stone carvers on the restoration of the St. Francis Hotel on Union Square, San Francisco