Working the Stone

Working the Stone is a unique work made up of text and images that takes as its focus an abandoned New England limestone quarry. Placed in an extended chronology of the area's archaeology going back 350 million years, Metcalf's and Saradoff's work moves into an orchestrated oral history of the quarry told by people who remember how the enterprise was set up and run. Waves of immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Poland, and Italy occupied villages in the area and worked at the quarry and plant, which was eventually acquired by U.S. Gypsum. Mechanization of the work processes replaced men and their laboriously gained expertise. Farnams then became a ghost town, and only recently has the area begun to experience a revival brought about by young professionals eager to return to the land. The story of the plant, quarry, and its people over the generations grows out of a complex weave of lyrical prose, oral histories, drawings, documents, and historical and contemporary photographs all unified in a testament to the enduring human spirit.