The Creative Works of Hector Santos
These large pieces have inspired me to create what I call “wall sculptures”, which are smaller and designed to hang indoors. They are a miniature extension of the full-sized pieces with added inlays of cooper, mica schist, granite, and sometimes birch. Because my larger pieces require weeks of planning, scheduling of trucks, the moving of many tons of stone, and the cooperation of the weather, I started making my mixed media work smaller and movable, and am able to create pieces indoors, year-round. They are more affordable than my outdoor sculptures, making them accessible to more people. I also design and install my wall sculptures on a larger scale. I have created walls of stone, copper, birch, and other media. The perfect environment for these is a reception area in a professional office, or hospital, restaurant or a room in a private residence.
Vermont winters are not a stone mason’s friend; in fact they stop you dead in your tracks. When I wake up in the morning and there is a foot of snow on the ground and it’s twenty five degrees outside, it’s time to call it a season and wait until spring to get started again. Due to these interruptions I have acquired many skills and started a few micro-businesses to get through the winter. I have taught skiing, been a bartender, waiter, chef, and a delivery van driver. I have owned an art gallery, done private cross country ski grooming and had a personal chef business. I recently graduated from Lebanon College after studying graphic design, a skill that I hope becomes my permanent winter job! My studies have enabled me to write, design and photograph my first book, build this website and my graphic design website, http://renaissance-graphics.com/. and others. If you would like contact me for a consultation or have any questions please click on this link sculpture@hectorsantos.com to contact me.
Best wishes,
—Hector Santos
I have been working with stone for more than thirty years. My work has taken me to many job sites across the United States and South America. I have worked with homeowners, architects, and engineers on projects as simple as replacing loose stones on steps, and as complex as complete houses of stone. Most of my stone is quarried in New England, upstate New York, and sometimes the midwest, with a majority coming from Goshen Stone in Goshen, Massachusetts or Quimby Mountain Stone in Sharon, Vermont, and occasionally there are projects where there is stone on the property where I am working. My work mostly consists of walls, patios, and occasionally a chimney.
Being a stonemason has been a gateway to harder, more challenging, self-created and commissioned sculpture projects. My outdoor site specific sculptures are inspired by the Neolithic structures of Europe using large slabs of stone as the structural element or frame and an inlay of stone between, sometimes with copper, to create the effect that the stone is moving or bending. What I hope to accomplish with my work is to create sense of place, a place to read, meditate, eat lunch, or just be. I feel my work is functional as well; the sculpture is the focal point, I often build a bench to give people a place to sit and include landscaping in my designs to enhance the overall effect. I see these sculptures as a greeting when approaching a corporate office building, as an accent to a well-landscaped garden, in a courtyard, or along a hiking path in the woods.
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