Caution: Woman With a Hammer
Being a female stone sculptor is akin to being a female construction worker in that we are few in number. For some reason the idea that a woman can possess physical strength and the desire to use it, is nearly unfathomable.
 A few years ago, I traveled to Guadalajara to buy stone for a workshop I was hosting here in Vallarta. I found a stone yard with a block of canterra I liked, and I asked if I could purchase half of it. The man said I could have the entire piece for the same money. But my truck was nearly full and I simply had no room. I asked him once again if he would please cut the stone in half, assuring him I was happy to pay what he wanted. When he refused, I opened my truck and got out a large hammer and chisel. “I can do it,” I told him. His eyes bulged in horror. You’d have thought I spewed profanity. He couldn’t allow a woman to do his job, and so he split the stone and loaded it into my pick-up without my help. I didn’t tell him the stone was destined to be carved by my dear friend and fellow female sculptor, Alison Small.
This fall, I was one of two Americans (both female) invited by the city of Penza, in the Russian Federation, to participate in the Penza International Sculpture Symposium. I traveled 5,000 miles and another reality away to carve with fifty-one sculptors in an event that exceeded my expectations. There were ten female sculptors, not bad for these modern, liberated times.
Billed as the largest sculpture symposium in the world, the organizers overcame incredible logistical odds to present us with a first-class event. We were welcomed with great respect and appreciation. The sponsors, including the City of Penza and the Hotel Chystie Prude, ensured the success of the event by providing ample resources to make the symposium a spectacular exchange of art and culture.
 We were overwhelmed by the number of spectators who flocked to our work site to watch us labor, by the attention of the media and by the gracious gestures made by Ministry of Culture, the mayor of Penza and the other officials who likewise extended their generosity to us.
The purpose of a sculpture symposium is to gather people together from different cultures and provide them with a common experience in which to create, exchange, learn, laugh and teach one another something of their talent and their country. It is common that only two out of ten participants will be female. This makes the work female sculptors do more important. It is proof that women are just as capable at taking a two-ton block of stone and turning it into a finished sculpture as a man is. Females may not be physically as strong as males, but they are talented and ingenious in the use of their strength. And women are accustomed to the effort it takes to prove themselves as equals.
In Penza, we sculptors came together to create work and cultural bonds, setting aside any political agendas and became instruments of peace and friendship in a world wracked by uncertainty. We created fifty-two pieces of sculpture and added something to our lives. The city of Penza and the Hotel Chystie Prudie gained works of art from well-respected sculptors at a fraction of the cost normally paid for these works. Everyone gained something from the experience.
 I hope to organize an event such as this, here in Vallarta. An international sculpture symposium can be a great opportunity to share the best of who we are with the rest of the world. In exchange for hosting a symposium, a community can gain not only the works of art, but insight and pleasure from watching the creations being sculpted by artists from around the globe.
Of course, I have an agenda. I want to invite an equal number of men and women, making this a truly unique event. I may not be able to influence equality as it affects every aspect of life, as I believe it should be, but I will endeavor to make this gesture to even out the field of sculptors in Puerto Vallarta’s first sculpture symposium.
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Watch for it. It will be amazing.
If you want to be a part of making this happen, you can email me at: stonsoulsister@msn.com
Dana O’Donnell
E-mail: stonsoulsister@msn.com
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Dana O’Donnell is a writer and stone sculptor who winters in Vallarta and spends her summers in Colorado and abroad where she participates in symposiums, creating monumental works of art that remain in countries around the world. A body of her work can be found at Galleria Dante and on her website at: www.stonesoulstudio.com
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