Nature has created a wide selection of rough boulders and stone materials we can select from when creating a new sculpture. We like working with rare materials that display colors, textures, translucence, veining and imperfections not normally seen in stones selected for modern stone sculptures. We currently are working in:

Very Rare Siberian Russian jade
Wyoming jade
Mexican Chrysacolla with veins of the mineral Turquoise
Arizona Rainbow Petrified Wood
Arizona Chromium Green Petrified Wood
Turquoise Nuggets
Rainbow Calcite
For our “Combine” works we also use found items, other unusual materials.

Below you will find more information on material.

Today the word jade is used to describe two different stone types, the minerals nephrite and jadeite. The differences between the two minerals is significant, but the differences are seldom explained.

Pure jade is white colored jade. Color comes from the presence of other minerals in the stone. “Blue” jade, characterized by an ice-like shade of pale blue, owes its unique color to the presence of iron and titanium, while the more typical green jade’s color is due to the varying presence of sodium, aluminum, iron, and chromium.

Both nephrite and jadeite range from opaque to translucent and in very rare cases transparent. The more translucent to transparent jade is, the higher the price. High quality, zero imperfection stones, of both varieties are extremely valuable, with record auction prices in the tens of millions of dollars!

Nephrite has been carved and sculpted back to paleolithic times. The Chinese dynasties used significant amounts of nephrite to make their most important sculptures and ceremonial pieces. Nephrite is a silicate of magnesium. It is fibrous, hard to fracture and almost soapy in appearance. We work very hard to shape and then polish our nephrite sculptures. We’ve been told by experts that our polished surfaces are some of the best they have seen on nephrite.

Jadeite is a comparatively younger stone in terms of carving history, having been used in China to any great extent since the 1780’s. In Mesoamerica the Olmec, Maya, Aztec and Costa Rican Native American elites particularly appreciated jade carvings and artifacts and commissioned elegant pieces from skillful artisans. Jade was traded and exchanged among elite members as a luxury item all over the pre-Hispanic American world. Jadeite can be found in Central America and Myanmar.

View our sculptures created from carefully selected jade stones and boulders. Contact us if you have any questions and to make a purchase.

We are very lucky to have four giant boulders of rare siberian nephrite jade that we sculpted and polished and are now available for sale. This material is seldom seen in large form boulders outside of Russia. We beleive our Siberian jade to be from East Sayan of Siberia, namely the Opinsk-Kitoy Massif from which boulders eroded into the Onot, Kitoy and Irkut Rivers, west of Irkutsk. We’ve named each jade piece based upon its mood. Each sculpture boulder of this rare matetrial weighs 100 lbs plus or minus!

Nephrite is also found in the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming, USA where it was first discovered in the early 1930’s in the area of Lander in Fremont County, both in situ and as boulders. Wyoming jade is green, black, greenish brown, and pale gray. A large boulder weighing 2,495 pounds is now in the Chicago Natural History Museum.

Most of the high-quality jade found in Wyoming has been extracted from alluvial deposits in and around the Granite Mountains of central Wyoming. In fact, detrital nephrite jade is found over a wide area extending from the southern end of the Wind River Mountains on the west to the Platte River near the town of Guernsey on the east and from Sage Creek Basin along the Sierra Madre on the south to near the town of Lysite on the north.

We are lucky to have purchased some unique shaped rough unpolished Wyoming jade boulders which we use as sculpting starting points. Our sculptures run from 5 lbs to 40 lbs.

We know the miners of this material in Mexico and have been able to acquire some of the largest specimens of this rare material. We shaped and polished these pieces so the inherent turquoise veins pop out from the chrysacolla background matrix stone. We placed some great sculptures on custom built stands. These pieces show remarkable blue’s and turquoise colors and textures. they are ideal for sculpture collection, as a focal point or a mantle piece! Our sculptures run from 36 lbs to 80 lbs.

Arizona Rainbow Petrified Wood is from the Triassic period of the Mesozoic era, around 230 million years old. This is the early dinosaur period when the dinos were about the size of a man, but the local Arizona crocodiles were up to 60 feet long. Most of our Arizona Petrified wood sculptures are made from the species Araucarioxylon Arizonicum an extinct species of conifer that is the state fossil of Arizona. The species is known from massive tree trunks that weather out of the Chinle Geologic Formation in desert badlands of northern Arizona and adjacent New Mexico. The petrified wood of this tree is frequently referred to as “Rainbow Wood” because of the large variety of colors some specimens exhibit. The red and yellow are produced by large particulate forms of iron oxide, the yellow being limonite and the red being hematite. The purple hue comes from extremely fine spherules of hematite distributed throughout the quartz matrix. White can be titanium dioxide and black can be from carbon.

Arizona Rainbow Petrified Wood is known around the world as the most colorful petrified wood. It also very hard and approximately 99% quartz. This allows it to be highly polished. We have some pieces polished on both flat sides and placed upon custom spinning stands so you can turn it to face you as your mood requires. In the past we have sold sculptures as large as 120 lbs. We currently have pieces in the 40 lbs range, ideal for mantles and as table centerpieces.

We have a few very rare small natural sculptural pieces of Chromium Green Petrified Wood from northern Arizona. This material comes from a single tree fall near Winslow, Arizona. We’ve polished the top surface and otherwise left this rare collectors piece natural.

In the tradition of modern sculptures we combined a natural cleaned american mule deer half jaw bone with semi-polished turquoise nuggets. The final piece is very unique. Bone is comprised of calcium carbonate the same material as calcite. This is the only sculpture like this we have ever seen.

We have acquired a monumental 193 lbs piece of rainbow calcite showing bands of color against a combination orange / salmon colored and white background. very much a one of a kind piece. This piece has been shaped. We foresee it as a monolith in a garden, gallery, public space or large room. This is perhaps the largest piece of this material in USA.

You are invited to view our “Sculpture Gallery” for photos and info of all currently available pieces.

For more info on the artists visit our web page “About the Artists”.

To contact us go to our web page “Contact Us” or send an email to info@modernstonesculpture.com.

i saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free

– Michelangelo