Chiseling a life with hammer and stone

Regal birds perched atop stunning nine-foot, rough-hewn stone posts pepper the grounds leading to Ben Cabot’s studio. The sculptor hand-carves each of these alluring avians, which are accompanied by a life-size mother and baby seal, a sea turtle, and a bulbous mushroom, from granite or marble. 

While he has created other creatures, including a horseshoe crab and fish, Cabot is particularly drawn to birds. 

“I think they appeal to me in part because of the whole magic of flight, the idea of the freedom that gives them, and the ability to see the world from another perspective,” he says. “My birds take on their own personality and individuality. I intentionally make each one different, allowing every bird to take on a likeness of its own.”

As a medium, stone is, of course, hard and solid. Yet with chisel and hammer, Cabot fashions his impressive works with apparent ease. When working, he is at one with the stone, which seems to call out the forms to create. Cabot captures the soul of his animals rather than focusing on exacting details, giving them breathing room for the viewer to bring something to each one.

Cabot, whose great-grandmother was a Mayhew, grew up summering on Martha’s Vineyard. The property where his parents live has been in his mother’s family for many generations: “I always had the Island connection here. So I felt like this was my home, and Pennsylvania was where I had to go to school.” 

Cabot was drawn to art from a young age. He says, “My mother was an art teacher, so I did ceramics and batik, and I loved to draw. But the sculpture didn’t start until about 1999.” He was working as a stonemason at the time, building patios and drystack stone walls: “I loved doing them. It was like a giant jigsaw puzzle.”

Speaking about the jump to sculpting, Cabot recalls, “I first had the idea when I saw a red-tailed hawk on a wooden fence post. My uncle was a wood carver, and I thought he should do that. I filed that idea away, and at one point I thought it would look neat in stone, which set everything else in motion.”

Remarkably, Cabot is entirely self-taught. Equally impressive, he rarely decides what he will carve in advance unless it’s a commission. He doesn’t make sketches, but rather works directly in stone: “I don’t even necessarily have a picture in my head first, and I don’t work with a physical model in clay. Once I start to see it in there, it can go relatively quickly. Sometimes the sculpture will change as I go along, or something might be in the stone that I don’t like, so I’ll have to move the head or beak, or cut the bird off completely and start over.”

The process is quite physical and labor-intensive. The nine-foot piece in progress in Cabot’s studio started as about a 4,000-pound block of granite, brought from an off-Island quarry and laid out just outside the door. He halved the giant piece by drilling holes along the slab’s length, then hammering in a metal wedge between what are called metal “feathers,” splitting the slab in half. Cabot then moved one half into the studio on rollers, and hauled it upright into a hole in the floor with a chain hoist.

He starts by chiseling the post, leaving the surface gloriously varied, which pulls our eye to the tiny flecks of black and white. He creates the bird’s smooth surface with a diamond blade on an angle grinder. “I do most of the rough shaping with that,” he explains. “For the fine details, I’ll switch to air chisels.” 

Depending on how much of the post he has taken away, the creature will look like it’s either perched on top or emerging from it. When he gets close to done, Cabot makes a list of the few details still left, which might include the tail, eyes, brows, and beak. “Otherwise, I’ll just keep going, and keep making little changes. But there’s no reverse. You can’t go back and make it bigger again. Once the work’s signed down below, it’s done.”

Cabot doesn’t typically title his pieces: “People will say it looks like a falcon or an owl. The fun part is letting people decide what type of bird it is, or what they would title it.”

No longer associated with a gallery, Cabot has his work exhibited in various locations around the Vineyard, including on his property. You can interact with his hawk at Featherstone Center for the Arts, a life-size seal at Camp Jabberwocky, a life-sized penguin at Island Autism, a hawk at Long Point’s winter entrance, a seal in the West Tisbury Cemetery, and a double-bird piece is scheduled for installation at Navigator Homes. His art is also in institutions and private collections across the country.

Cabot’s sculptures have a magnetic pull. The urge to run your hands over their rough and smooth textures, and to feel the coolness of the stone is compelling — and fortunately, one we can satisfy by seeking them out.

For more information, visit cabotcarving.com.