T Barny has carved out a space for the Möbius in stone art
Upon reaching the parking area of T Barny’s Workshop and Studio off Alexander Valley Road, the first thing one notices is a gray patina over everything: a layer of fine dust over the flat tables, on the broadleaf plants, and especially in the workshop and every item in it.
Including the sculptor himself, T Barny. He’s a big, bearded guy with a twinkle in his eye, greeting visitors with a grin and a handshake, his work apron and hat covered in dust. The workshop is an open shed of tools—saws, chisels, sanders of every shape, rotating tables to allow 360-degree access to the sculptures-in-process—everything covered in that patina of gray powder.
“We make dust, basically,” he says, though he says he’s cleaned it up a bit for our visit. Tidier, perhaps, but it’s hard to imagine the workshop of an artist who “creates stone into abstract shapes,” and has been doing so for 45 years using rock from 213 kinds of stone from 56 countries and several states, as being anything but dusty…