Flamme
A flame-like vein or color variation in granite; also a flame-shaped architectural ornament.
Materials
Fleuret
A quarry drilling tool with a steel rod and cutting end used with rock drills or pneumatic hammers.
Foliation
Planar alignment of minerals in certain metamorphic rocks, producing a layered structural fabric.
Foration / Forage
Mechanical drilling of holes into rock during quarrying or stone work.
Porphyry
A hard igneous stone with conspicuous crystals set in a finer matrix; in art history the term often refers especially to imperial purple-red porphyry quarried in Egypt.
Quarry
The working from which natural stone is extracted—and, for the sculptor, the first workshop in the life of a stone sculpture, where geology, orientation, block size, soundness, provenance, procurement, and communication begin to determine the work.
Stone Selection
The evaluation of a stone before carving for soundness, grain, bedding, veining, fissures, inclusions, color, weather resistance, dimensions, and suitability for the intended form.
Terracotta
Fired clay used as a permanent sculptural material, usually left in its natural fired color or given slips, glazes, paint, or other surface treatments.
Thixotropic Agent
An additive that makes a material thixotropic: relatively stable or gel-like at rest but more fluid when stirred, brushed, or sheared.
Dessiccation
The removal or loss of moisture from a material.