By Shya Beth
Humans have been carving images of horses for tens of thousands of years, and Paul Chase’s carved stone horses echo what ancient to modern artists long to capture: the invisible essence of the equine spirit, which has become an inseparable part of the human story since time immemorial. His sculptures capture the playful and whimsical personality of horses and pair that with the strength of marble and other kinds of stones—a parallel to the gentle yet powerful equine muses.
Carving or sculpting is quite different from painting, with its own set of challenges and requiring a different thought process. It’s not surprising that Paul had such an interest in art as his grandmother, Stella Nutting Chase, and famed American painter Georgia O’Keeffe were second cousins. Paul found out about his artistic heritage in high school from his grandfather, who explained that Georgia O’Keeffe had grown up near his home in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.
“I was very interested in art as a child and I continued to follow the ‘artist’ path through college, and attended the University of Wisconsin in 1965. Eventually I ended up in Missoula, Montana, teaching high school art classes, which also inspired my interest in horses. Missoula is big horse country, so it wasn’t long after my family and I built a log cabin that we acquired and took care of a few horses on our land. Those are some of my favorite memories: the sights, sounds, the smells and a kind of happiness that came from the horse.”
“Brandy Blaze” – 7x10x13 – Tennessee Cedar Red Marble
Painting Music
Paul’s career as an art teacher spanned over 30 years, teaching in Missoula and Wenatchee, Washington, and finally Elizabeth, Illinois, at a vocational center, where his focus was on commercial art, photography and graphic arts. It was at this time, around 1980, that Paul started a new hobby of playing the guitar, which sparked a new exploration in his art.
“I became fascinated with the design of the guitar; such a wide variety of colors and shapes,” Paul said. “I decided to start a series of large-format guitar paintings on canvas and named the series ‘Graphic Guitars.’ The paintings were not of people playing the guitar but mostly just bold designs, sometimes close-up colors and designs of the guitar. O’Keeffe’s series of close-up details of flowers inspired my close-up detail paintings of the guitar. I took the paintings to guitar shows in Nashville, Tennessee, and eventually filled the lobby of a hotel with guitar paintings and displayed three originals in the Country Music Hall of Fame.”
This led to Paul creating commissions and original paintings for country music artists and legends like John Michael Montgomery, Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, Tanya Tucker and many others. While both music and paintings are both still important in his life, Paul has entered into a new dimension—sculpture, creating a new excitement in his creative process. When Paul first started carving in 2015, he began by carving wood pieces, some up to six feet tall, with music themes and guitar designs, and soon after had a solo sculpture exhibit in Nashville, offering viewers 25 pieces of art. That was the beginning of his stone-carving adventure—one that feeds his creative visions through his life experience.
“UpTown Girl” – 14x14x5 – Gray Marble
Stones Start Speaking
In 2012, Paul began to spend a few winter months in Tucson, Arizona. While Paul was visiting the Cochise Marble Quarry, the owner let him load up as much raw stone as he wanted. The quarry is unique because it has a wide selection of colors of marble, and as a gift to the owner for his kindness, Paul carved his first large horse head “The Bronc” in dark gray marble with lines of black. He was enamored with the process, and his series titled “Stone Horses” was born.
Paul has collected marble from all over the country and has a wide array of marble boulders and pieces outside his studio in Galena, Illinois. “Part of the creative process for me in stone carving is allowing the stone to ‘speak to me,’ or tell me what it wants to be and then guide me through the designing and carving,” he said. “It’s similar to painting in that way. One day, I looked at the large red marble chunk of stone, and it was obvious it would become a horse head. I love to create a horse head breaking out of the rock in wild energy!”
“Turquoise Dancer” – 12x18x7 – Tennessee Red Marble – Turquoise stone inlay
Paul often gets inspired directly from a rock, sometimes suddenly “seeing” what is inside the rough form, or the rock “shouts out” what it wants to be. But sometimes the opposite happens, too: Instead of the stones speaking to him, sometimes it’s the curvature of the horse, geometric design of the muscles, bone structure and mane to create a beautiful, almost abstract sculpture, displaying the mystique and beauty of the horse, enhanced by the colors and textures of the stone. Starting out, Paul stuck to the traditional method of stone carving, using hammers, chisels, files and sandpaper, which dates back to artists like Michelangelo. As his style progressed, he started using modern-day power tools as well, allowing him to work quickly and creatively, enhancing the stone sculpting adventure.
“I get excited when new people discover my work. My friend Dawn Ann Billings recently opened an upscale Western store called Moo Country near Nashville, Tennessee, and a second store this past May in Bozeman, Montana. The stores feature all designer-quality, handmade clothing, accessories and art work—including several of my horse-head carvings. I recently turned back to my love of music by creating a line of sculptures called ‘Music Visions’—sculptures carved from stone in shapes of the treble clef and various music notes creates another challenge in the three-dimensional realm. The treble clef sculptures finally answered the question musicians and artists have pondered for centuries: ‘What does the back side of a treble clef look like?’”
For more information, visit www.paulchase.com
