A gem of a carver.

• Position: Museums Today - Harold Van Pelt - Interview

Keller, Peter

FOR THOUSANDS of years, man has enjoyed the art of stone carving, also known as lapidary. Five thousand years ago, the Chinese began shaping .jade into mythical animals, and later the tradition was carried on by the Greeks, Romans, and other cultures around Europe.

In more recent times, the art of Carl Faberge--the Russian court ,jeweler to Czar Alexander III--has stood out. The tradition of stone carving exists in China today, with massive amounts of jade and other materials being crafted in distinctly Asian styles. Western works, such as that of Faberge, are much more limited, with most of the pieces coming from Idar-Oberstein, a city in Germany.

Harold Van Pelt and his wile Erica are among the finest gem photographers in the world today, yet it is less well-known that he has been pursuing another art--stone carving--for almost 40 years, indeed a rarity here in the U.S. The premiere exhibition of his life's work, "Gemstone Carvings: Masterworks by Harold Van Pelt," is on view through May 31, 2011, at the Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, Calif. This is the first time that the full body of his work has been displayed in one place.

Van Pelt employs quartz, rock crystal, or agate--a banded variety of quay. These me the same materials employed by gem carvers since ancient times due to their beauty, durability, and availability. Hundreds of hours go into working the stone down to paper-thin walls, bringing out the gorgeous natural quality and colors of the agate and the transparency of the rock crystal.

Peter Keller, president of the Bowers Museum, had a chance to catch up with Van Pelt and discuss his craft.

Keller: Van, I've known you and Erica for over 35 years.... I remember the first piece I saw; Erica showed me back in 1976. I was impressed when I saw a faceted egg [even though] I thought to myself that everyone has those. Erica smiled and twisted it and it was a hollow faceted egg and I was in love with your work from then on.... [When] did you start [carving]?

Van Pelt: ... In the late '60s we used to buy slices of agate and quartz crystals at the Tucson show and other places. [We had] a flat slice about an inch thick of agate, kind of a dull color. I started by making a tray out of it that was hob low on the inside [with] the natural rind left on the outside, and this was probably our first lapidary endeavor.

Keller: That's kind of like the Chinese tradition where they take a piece of jade and retain the rind, but that first carving was out of a piece of agate and most of what you have done, Ks far as I know. has been largely containers that arc made out of quartz or varieties of quartz such as an agate. Why did you choose that material?

Van Pelt: It's available. There's a lot of quartz from this country, from Arkansas [to] California mines ... It was reasonably priced, so you didn't have a large financial investment. Agate, of course, has always been available from Brazil and that's a beautiful colored, large stone. The hollowing, a lot of people have done containers, [but] they didn't hollow them [or] make them thinner and ... three dimensional.... So, we decided we should be doing that and we made the equipment to do it.

Keller: You actually manufactured your own equipment?

Van Pelt: ... In those days you couldn't buy a lot of the tools [like] you can now and so we made them--converted wood working equipment into doing stone carving. Keller: Like the lathe?

Van Pelt: ... The lathe was a metal lathe from 1925, and we converted it into stone work. It takes a very slow motor and very large tool post motor to turn [the material] very slowly ... while you carve it, and we converted the steel lathe ... to a rock lathe.

Keller: Given your background and your phenomenal expertise in gem photography ... an agate tray isn't quite the same scale as a hollow egg or vase or many of the things you have done. What inspired you? Is them any culture?

Van Pelt: Erica is German, so, in probably the late '60s, we started going to Staldt and were able to see some of the great carvers there and how they function and how they use...