Sculptors come to Saint John to create rock art

Six sculptors from around the world have come to Saint John to begin slicing massive boulders of New Brunswick granite into works of art.

Once they're complete in September, the sculptures will go in six New Brunswick communities.

Bulgaria's Radoslav Sultov's piece will end up in Grand Bay-Westfield and yesterday he visited that spot for the first time.

"It's a very nice place, very good panorama," Sultov said.

Coming from as far away as Japan and the Republic of Georgia, the sculptors will be assisted by six sculpting interns from New Brunswick.

"The people are professors, these people are professionals in their trade and that's invaluable even just by osmosis, to be around them is already a dream come true," said Meghan Barton, an intern from Quispamsis.

Each artist was given the opportunity to pick out 10 tonnes of stone each, but they all liked what they saw on the Saint John Waterfront at the former Coast Guard property. So now the lot is full of 110 tonnes of granite waiting to be sculpted.

Every artist was given about an hour to pick out their canvas.

Hampton's Jim Boyd eventually settled on four stones from St. George and Hampstead.

"The St. George stones have a bit of a pink colour to them. And my sculpture will be going to St. George, they wanted me to incorporate their granite obviously," Boyd said.

Diana Alexander, the symposium’s chair, says the event will present a rare opportunity to see the artistic process in action.

"We go out and see a piece of public art and say 'isn't that beautiful?' or 'not my taste,' or 'I love it.' But we rarely get to see the vision of how that starts," Alexander said.

The symposium wraps up on Sept. 15.