Free carving is kind of a weird mental experience for me.

You have to force yourself to see past all the excess stone. It almost reminds me of when I used to be overweight but didn’t realize I was overweight.

I had this idea in my head of what I looked like, just like I have an idea in my head of what the final sculpture will look like. And just like losing weight, the changes are often very gradual and you just have to keep at it until the mental image matches reality.