Photo: Tom Hindman

Dan Kurland's moving van to Charleston contained some heavy items, indeed.

He and his wife came here from Texas in 2002 when she took a job with the West Virginia University Institute for Health Policy Research. Kurland then settled into a job as health action coordinator for Covenant House.

But his baggage from Texas included a number of stone carvings he had done over the last 35 years or so. And they've found a home in two Charleston galleries, some at Covenant House, the others at Gallery Eleven on Quarrier Street.

The bodies of work, carved out of wood, limestone and marble, represent just one of many paths Kurland has taken in his 64 years.

He has been the editor of the educational division of Simon and Schuster, a reading specialist at colleges including State University of New York and City College of New York, a math and science teacher on a Hopi Indian reservation, a machinist and assistant to the chaplain of Johns Hopkins University.

In the 1980s, when living in Texas, he became an artist full time and exhibited in galleries in Austin, Dallas and Houston.

Kurland may lack formal art training, but he found inspiration and education in one of the masters. He says he learned to carve by studying the tool marks on Michelangelo's unfinished works in Italy and France.

He found that while stone isn't easy -- its weight and the danger of flying bits are hazard enough -- he loved seeing what it would reveal.

"With stone, you're working with the essence of something," he said. "The game is taking away what doesn't belong."

Most of Kurland's pieces have taken the form of women.

"Women are rounder than men; women work better in stone," he said. He once did an entire series of pregnant women.

He rarely uses models or drawings, preferring instead to let the form "reveal" itself to him.

A perfect example is "Cat Woman," a piece carved from limestone, which features a woman on one side and a jaguar on the other. The women at Covenant House have told him he should rename it, "I am Woman, Hear me Roar."

"I stared at this and stared at it and the woman appeared on this side," Kurland said. The other side of the stone wasn't as revealing.

"I wanted to find her there and I couldn't," he said. Instead, he kept seeing a cat. During his most productive years of carving, Kurland explored a number of styles, some of his favorites being in the style of South American artists.

Two pieces at Covenant House were carved in wood, once from a large Chinese tallow tree that was killed by frost in Texas. Working with the wood gave Kurland the chance to carve with a chainsaw, something he'd wanted to try.

These days, Kurland has put away his carving tools, saying he decided to stop for a while after his pieces stopped selling in Texas.

Covenant House has 11 pieces on exhibit in its small gallery; he has committed to giving 20 percent of any sales back to Covenant House. Several more pieces are displayed at Gallery Eleven.

Writer Monica Orosz can be reached at 348-4813.

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