The Spirit of the Mountains
The Spirit of the Mountains, a life size female allegory representing the native Mountain Top region. Begun in 2012 Spirit is slowly being carved out of a twelve-ton block of local Bluestone donated by Tompkins Bluestone. She stands surrounded by all of the flora and fauna of the Mountain Top. She cradles the infant Future in her right arm. On her left shoulder she balances the Urn of Truth from which flows the Waters of Life which fall into Katterskill Falls carved from her robe under her left arm. Sprit-like all of the other two hundred plus carvings at Bluestones Park-will be carved in public and remain on permanant free public display. Spirit will also function as a de facto Doctorate for the serious sculptors; each will be able to choose an element-the bear, the fox, or the eagle- that they will carve start to finish. The as yet unfinished maquette, or model for Spirit of the Mountains is on view in the Town of Hunter municipal building next door to Bluestones Park. Bluestones park presently consists of twenty-one blocks of local Bluestone and Limestone donated by Falkies Quarry and New York Quarries.
“In order to include human history, human cultures, and human psychology, art must be viewed as an inherent universal (or biological) trait of the human species, as normal and natural as language, sex, sociability… or any of the other characteristics of human nature.”
— Ellen Dissanayake, 1995, Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes from and Why.
Spirit at quarry
Saw
Setting Spirit 2011
HSCS 2011
2011
2011 Supervisor Dennis Lucas
July 2013
August 2015
September 2016
October 2016
November 2016
December 2017
July 2018
May 2019
March 2021
Spirit of the Mountains model (unfinished 2015)