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The marble - Colorado

* MARBLE, COLORADO Even on a hot Colorado afternoon, the shard of stone feels cool to the touch. A victorianera adjective floats to mind: marmoreal, with its connotations of smoothness, paleness, and death. Lift the stone to the sun, though, and it springs to life, revealing hidden hues-gold, celadon--dancing inside the white.
"For me this marble is so exquisite," says Madeline Wiener. "So beautiful."
Wiener knows: A Denver sculptor, she is codirector of the Marble Institute of Colorado's MARBLE/marble symposium, which each summer invites artists from around the world to carve here on the banks of Colorado's Crystal River. The stone she praises is indeed beautiful. And it possesses unusual resonance: Some of the nation's greatest monuments are created out of Marble's stone.
Thinking about marble forces you to take the long view. Marble began, 300 or so million years ago, as calcium carbonate remnants of sea creatures compressed into limestone; water, heat, and additional pressure then created marble. A great dome of marble along Yule Creek at the upper end of the Crystal River Valley was first noticed by prospectors in the 1870s; the town of Marble, Colorado, was founded in 1881. But it took one Colonel Channing Frank Meek to make Marble marble famous. In 1904, he incorporated the Colorado-Yule Marble Company and established quarries, a mill, and a tram to carry the stones down the mountain. Meek's enthusiasm was contagious. One of his investors wrote, "I believe we are entering an era which might appropriately be named the marble age."
For some years the boast came true. Company and town thrived. Marble marble graced the Colorado and Montana capitols. It was chosen to decorate the Lincoln Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Then the great age ended, Colonel Meek died in a freak accident on the marble tram. The Depression and then World War II slowed demand. The quarry closed, the mill was dismantled, and Marble became a near ghost town. In the 1980s, a handful of Colorado artists happened upon the slabs of stone left behind-and began to carve. From this grew Wiener's symposium.
These days, when you arrive at Marble you see slabs of rock standing among aspen, like cast-off refrigerators. Next you hear the whine of pneumatic tools. And then, at last, you see Wiener and her participants, carving their stones.
For her participants, Wiener offers advice both practical and inspirational. Critiquing one figure, she warns, "Remember-a V shape is very weak. This arm could fall off." She mocks the notion that it is the stone, not the sculptor, who determines the work. She gestures to the marble slab. "Your sculpture is not in here waiting to be released. It's in here"-she points to her head. "And in here"-she points to her heart.
During each symposium, Wiener and codirector Gregory Tonozzi try to make sure the artists see where the marble comes from. For the quarry- now operated by Sierra Minerals Corporation-is, again, operational. The day I visit, we drive up the mountain in Tonozzi's truck. 'Artists have no clue to the technology that goes into extracting stone from the mountain," he says. "You develop a lot of respect for the stone when you see the guys working up here, moving 20 and 30 tons of rock."
The quarry superintendent, Roger Ball, shows us around. It is like stepping into a fairy tale: a world, hollowed inside a mountain, composed entirely of white.
I pick up a another piece of marble. "Granite is hard to work with because it's tough," Wiener tells me. "Marble is hard because it's so delicate. Granite is the dandelion. Marble is the orchid." I feel the marble cool in my hand. It took aeons to make this rock, but no one can say it wasn't worth the time.