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A Suitable Stone

4 February 2025

Steve the geologist and Lida the letter cutter met when Steve visited the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop, Cambridge, for the most intimate of reasons: to commission gravestones on behalf of his family. A Suitable Stone is a charming, engaging, and informative conversation between the scientist and the artist as they explore the materials their professions have in common. As a geoscientist, Steve considers the rocks that make up our Earth and preserve the impact of past climate, tectonic events, and cycles in Earth’s history over hundreds of millions of years. This deep time contrasts with the impulse to record human movements, ideas, and memories in stone marking, carving, and letter cutting – a craft that spans just a few hundred to hundreds of thousands of years – a mere blink of an eye compared to geological history. 

We are introduced to the most commonly used stones for letter cutting: Welsh slate, Lake District green slate, sandstones, and limestones. Dedicated chapters describe key geological features of these rocks and their response to the chisel. This book is exquisitely illustrated; the simple yet informative illustrations by Fiona Boyd are refreshing and bring to life maps, cross sections, and charts that will be familiar to geological readers, but here entice you to examine with fresh eyes. Wonderful photographs focus on the letter cutting craft from quarry locations and stone selection through to the cutting process and the final product. The passion and artistry in this craft is evident throughout. Of course, geology, or more precisely rock and stone, is the obvious common denominator in this book, but equally lettering and calligraphy are entwined in these two worlds of Earth science and letter cutting, where they accommodate information and emotion through the right shapes of words. 

This book will appeal to a wide audience. It invites the geologist to consider properties of rock that they will be both familiar with and perhaps less so and the ‘Goldilocks problem’: not too hard, not too soft, not too porous, not too granular, and not too complex stones that invite the chisel into the stone. I loved the letter cutter’s description of the sound of the stone; a ‘thud’, a ‘ping’, or a ‘ring’. The book is a delightful insight into the common ground between science and art, where we are invited to consider humanity’s impact on the planet and the legacies we leave. 

Reviewed by Lucy Williams 

 

Details 

BY: Steve Garrett & Lida Lopes Cardozo Kindersley (2024). Cardozo Kindersley Workshop. 94 pp. (hbk) 

ISBN: 978-1-7395878-3-3 

PRICE: £20 www.kindersleyworkshop.co.uk or stevegarrettguitar.com/a-suitable-stone