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About us
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Celtic Stone Art began in Calgary, Alberta, when Bob Ball, a retired retreat director, carved a Celtic cross in his spare time as a personal work of art for his home. Bob took it for finishing advise to acclaimed realist artist John Brocke, who is also an accomplished scenic painter in the theatre and movie industry. John hand-painted this first piece to look like a stone carving that had weathered for centuries. The effect was stunning.
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Spurred on by this, Bob designed and carved more crosses for which he developed moulds. Then John spent weeks formulating and perfecting the technique that gives all Celtic Stone Art products the look of antiquity. As the first ones were ready, Bob sold them to friends and acquaintances.
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As interest grew, Anna Gardner, business associate of a fine art auction house, developed the marketing and basic infrastructure for Celtic Stone Art. Soon a number of stores in Western Canada began to carry their products.
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"There is an increasing demand for artifacts and objects that express the beauty and harmony of Celtic art. Our goal was to create a line of products that would retain the old world flavour of individually crafted pieces of stone" Anna remarks. |
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Doug Ball, a skilled renovation expert and artisan, loves working with stone. Trained in the various finishing techniques developed by Bob and John, he also began producing these unique and personalized treasures, so reminiscent of the stonework found in his ancestral homeland. |
"It took lots of training and practice until I was satisfied with my work", says Doug, who now produces all of the pieces and is responsible for constant development and improvement of technique. "Even though cast from a mould", he explains, "each one is an individual work of art as it is painted and finished by hand".
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All photos are courtesy of Keith Logan, an accomplished professional photographer, whose work has been published in many books, calendars and magazines, including the National Geographic. Also widely exhibited in museums and art galleries, his nature photography was recently exhibited at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies. For more information on Keith, see www.keithlogan.org.
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