A newly created sculpture by local artist Lawrence Stoller titled Three Sisters in Stone that appears to be a painting is actually a cross section of a unique natural mineral which formed 3,000 million years ago in Western Australia.
This mineral called Tiger Iron, is a blending of tiger eye, hematite and jaspilite. Forged by incredible heat and pressure, the (initially) molten stone cooled and crystalized into an exquisite rendition of the Three Sisters Mountains.
“A natural stone with the image of The Three Sisters etched in it grabbed me instantly,” explains Stoller. “It looks like the view out my studio window. It is as if Nature did an original sketch that formed in the crust of the earth. And then she followed up with a full scale rendition in our Central Oregon backyard, 8,812 miles from the geological origin of the tiger iron. Polishing the stone and making a bronze base created an image that will hopefully endure (at least) another 3,000 million years.”
Stoller is an internationally recognized, award-winning artist who has pioneered the art of sculpting spectacular Megagems, including several of the largest gemstone sculptures in existence.
His work has been featured in numerous shows and galleries in the United States, from Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles to Fifth Avenue in New York, the Furstman Institute of Mineralogy (Moscow, Russia), the Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art (Elhurst, Illinois), the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.
Stoller completed a commission for American Express, creating the centerpiece of the 9/11 Eleven Tears Memorial, located across the street from Ground Zero. His collaborative work Bahia stands as the cornerstone of the Gemological Institute of America in Carlsbad, California.
An avid horseman and endurance athlete, Lawrence Stoller and his wife Sunni live, work, and teach in the shadows of the spectacular Three Sisters Mountains in Bend, Oregon.