Each year in the fall, the Carving Studio sets a theme for an outdoor show, and chooses a dozen or so sculptors from a pool of applicants to respond to it. The themes are general, the judges are permissive, and pretty much anything goes--and does it ever. Seeing the ingenious productions, displays and installations--which take advantage of the many raw materials around the site--is an annual treat for area art lovers. From time to time, the CS has scheduled an iron pour, in which a guild of people who are very serious about playing with fire use molten metal in memorable, if not permanent ways. Year by year, the CS community adds to whatever mysteries the silent, water-filled quarries might be holding.
Along with this enthusiasm for the new, the SculptFests honor the hard work of the former residents, many of them immigrants and some of them talented carvers in their own right. A small park on Marble Street between the village and the CS explicitly honors that heritage. Inside the CS headquarters, there are poster-size prints of photographs showing the quarries in their working years. Anyone seeking more information is referred to a museum in Proctor that has a big collection of such pictures, along with an unforgettable collection of samples of marble from around the world.