“The brick is another teacher. How sensible this small, handy shape, so useful for every purpose. What logic in its bonding, what liveliness in the play of patterns.” – Mies van der Rohe
“You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good, I am happy and I say: `This is beautiful.’ That is architecture. Art enters in.” – Le Corbusier
An Art Form
Here at Santa Barbara Stone Masters, among our core philosophies is one which is deeply engrained in our culture: that the work we perform in restoring natural stone, cleaning, polishing, honing and sealing, is an art form. That’s why I’ve opened up this blog with some architectural quotes which speak to how the use of natural materials can elicit a deep, emotional response.
That’s what art does, and that’s the end result of our artful stone restoration efforts: eliciting an emotional response. It’s the feeling you get when you see rock formations out in nature. The totality of the visual experience is inspiring, and so should be your marble floors or granite kitchen island.
To me, it’s akin to when I took in El Capitan at Yosemite after a 10 mile hike…you can’t help but stop and allow the amazement to sink in.
Or like the time I got to see the blocks of molten rock which form Devils Tower, an incredible monument which remains affixed and towering over the hills of Wyoming, where many other mountains have succumbed to the perils of nature and thus tumbled, the bricks of which would become vanity tops, kitchen islands, and the office flooring upon which people do their work. Each one came from within the earth, the ground; to be ripped, cut and truly shaped by hands…
And then there are the natural striations and veins of color, the dimensionality of the sedimentary rock which I witnessed in the Badlands from a helicopter; amazing! And to wonder about the first person is history to have thought of cutting these rocks out from within the earth to use as materials for living structures…I wish I had been there to see that thought materialize!
But rocks and stone in their natural environment don’t require routine maintenance. They don’t need to be cleaned or honed or polished or sealed. In your home, however, they will encounter all kinds of challenges they never face in nature. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t preserve their innate, natural glory.
That’s where you come in – with diligence and a little bit of know how, you can keep your natural stone looking as beautiful as the day it was first cut from the earth. And where more moderate or intense restoration is needed, Santa Barbara Stone Masters can help.
I write this blog to equip you to care for your natural stone the way in which it deserve to be cared. Check out our other blogs on the nature of natural stone for all the information you’ll ever need, like our natural stone cheat sheet, or this great article about the importance of sealer!
Do you have natural stone that needs to be maintained? Sealed? Restored?
Trust the pros here at Santa Barbara Stone Masters – nobody will take better care of your stone than us. Give us a call today!
