Ships worldwide. This piece is held at our workshop and ships internationally.
One of a kind
Every carving is cut from its own block of rough. The photographs on this page show the exact piece you will receive — not a sample from the same batch.
Natural stone, untreated
100% natural stone, never dyed or reconstituted. Veins, inclusions and small shifts in colour are how the material formed; they are marks of origin rather than faults.
Carved by hand
Cut, shaped and polished by hand. Proportions differ a little from piece to piece because each one follows the block it came out of.
Checked and packed
Hand-inspected before dispatch and shipped in shockproof packaging.
What Is Not Apparent
The stone is inevitably associated with what goes unnoticed in ordinary conditions, and is kept by people who like that idea more than they like the rock.
Keep a small UV torch beside it; the piece is half of the object.
Where It Comes From
Found on one shoreline in one part of the world, yooperlite carries a specificity most stones do not — it is from somewhere in particular.
Traditionally kept as a marker of a place rather than a property.
New Things Still Exist
Identified in 2017, it is a reminder that the catalogue of ordinary things is not closed.
Show it to someone who thinks everything has already been found.
The Same Object, Twice
Practitioners tend to describe it in terms of the same thing being two things depending on how it is looked at.
Turn the light on and off rather than leaving either state permanent.
Why We Carve Dragons
A dragon leaves no fossil, so every carver is arguing about an animal that exists only in stories. Across both European and East Asian tradition the dragon is a guardian — of hoards, of thresholds, of water and weather — and the skull is the part of any creature that outlasts it.
Traditionally kept where something needs watching over: a doorway, a desk, a shelf above the money.