Monument Maker

Product Information

This is the story of how a farmboy became America’s foremost sculptor. After failing at academics, Dan was working the family farm when he idly carved a turnip into a frog and discovered what he was meant to do. Sweeney’s swift prose and Fields’s evocative illustrations capture the single-minded determination with which Dan taught himself to sculpt and launched his career with the famous Minuteman Statue in his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts. I loved this biography about a kid who didn’t know where he fit. Daniel’s journey is inspiring for not only artists but for anyone who is looking for their passion. I loved the support Daniel’s family provided and the unique setting of Concord, Massachusetts at the time that Daniel was growing up among men such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Louisa May Alcott’s family. The illustrations are amazing and contribute to the feel of the sculptures. Great history and human-interest story. I intend that this book should be as a mausoleum for the two of us, and the state of our bodies, guesswork, now, buried, still entwined in each other, our very bones confused, our skulls fused in some unimaginable cataclysmic attempt at ultimate union, which is what sculpture is, which is what these language marks, carved into white by a pressure in my brain that I know can only find release in the idea of being caught up in something eternal …” I’m not interested in books with a point or a lesson. And I’m not interested in plots. Reading for me has always been about pleasure and awe. When I sat down to write it in2008, I had no idea what it was about.” If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month.

Visionary and prismatic, gloriously hallucinatory although grounded in the material, Monument Maker's grand sweep takes in distant historical subterrains, a shimmering summer of the present, the transient, the eternal, the profane, the divine' WENDY ERSKINE David Keenan’s fifth novel, Monument Maker, may be construed as a monument in its own right, aspiring to timelessness – a vast, often bewildering store of memories and narratives ranging across different periods and landscapes. Keenan, we are told, spent a decade writing the book, and the result is a text of colossal ambition. Keenan says, “I think literature should show us how spectacular, miraculous and unique existence is. I wanted to thank God for the moment, for the miracle of life. So many books these days are just dreary critiques. I wanted a book that said YES! A book that was grateful to the glory of beauty and love and art.”Oh god no! I Saw my mum the other and she remarked that I was exactly the same person I was when I was a teenager. And I think she’s right.” Daniel Chester French was son to a successful lawyer in the mid 1800's. As a child he struggled to discover what he was good at since he failed all his academic classes. He did, however, enjoy making things beautiful. He loved drawing, sculpting, carving, etc. Encouraged by his father and family, Daniel went on to further schooling and apprenticeships until he became known and requested for his sculpting skills. Daniel Chester French, one of the most prolific and acclaimed American sculptors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is best known for his design of the monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC.

Options are classified by the type and size of the grave: single, double, children, or family estate. You can browse images for custom monuments and headstones in grid or gallery view. You can also designate custom grave marker designs as “favorites” for easy access and viewing on repeated visits to the IdeaBook. Personalized Elements Mary Paulson-Ellis was born in Glasgow and studied Politics and Sociology at Edinburgh University. She worked for several years in arts administration before giving it all up to become a writer. She began with an evening class as part of the Edinburgh … Sir David Amess was a Conservative MP from 1983, firstly for Basildon then Southend West. He was actively involved with legislation involving animal welfare and up until the collapse of the ‘Red Wall’ in the December 2019 general election was one of th … Icons that depict a wide variety of objects or likenesses that show lifelong interests, such as lighthouses, trains, homes, household items or other special articles.How do you actually construct a novel like Monument Maker? Given the sweep of its narrative - it moves between the battle of Khartoum in 1884, to the Second WW, to the present - and characters that proliferate like dividing cells under a microscope, you’d think it was a novel that was meticulously planed and endlessly revised. So how did he do it? Keenan believes in God - “I’ve always been religious” - and he believes in Art. “I believe art can transform your life - it’s true because it transformed mine.” His tribute to the tall, gaunt, noble man who held America together when no one else could have was the crowning achievement of a boy who loved to make beautiful things. Flat or beveled markers. Simple stones that are positioned flush to the grass with messaging on top. Standard monuments. Traditional and vintage grave marker designs as seen in cemeteries all over the world, in a wide range of alternative shapes and cuts.

Zoë Strachan’s latest novel is an immersive, finely-drawn family saga. Following the lives of Rena a …I sometimes think David Keenan dreams aloud. His prose has the effortless enigmatic, unsettling quality of dream' EDNA O'BRIEN THE SCOTSMAN Keenan is the kind of writer who can look forward to being lovingly over-interpreted into perpetuity Patten’s IdeaBook offers a nearly limitless number of artistic combinations for you and your family to consider for your loved one’s custom mausoleum, gravestone or memorial. Its goal is to help you create a compelling, lasting image that perfectly captures the life and memories of the departed. Custom Headstones for Generations of Memories

MONUMENT MAKER straddles genres while fully embracing none of them, a book within a book within a book that runs from hallucinatory historical epics through future-visioned histories of the world narrated by a horribly disfigured British soldier made prophetic by depths of suffering; books that interact with Keenan’s earlier novels, including a return to the mythical post-punk Airdrie landscape of his now classic debut, THIS IS MEMORIAL DEVICE; whole histories of art and religion; books that are glorious choral appendices; bibliographies; imagined films; tape recorded interviews; building to a jubilant accumulation of registers, voices and rhythms that is truly Choral. Eileen M Hunt: Feminism vs Big Brother - Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder; Julia by Sandra Newman

CATEGORIES

The IdeaBook’s collection of customized gravestones, monuments, and tombstone designs includes images that depict the most essential interests, beliefs, connections, and work to represent what departed loved ones were most passionate about. IdeaBook images feature themes that convey aspects deeply related to the history of the departed, including: History shapes our lives. And what we do with our lives can shape history”. So reads the first sentence in Monument Maker. It is easy to ignore, either honestly or selectively, the monuments erected by our ancestors. A statue is as much a monument to past beliefs of who deserves to be idolized as it is the subject of the statue itself. In the news, you will hear of Confederate leaders and figures, their statues pulled to the ground in a effort to remind us that not everyone we physically look up to deserves that. On the flip side, statues like the one of John Henry in Talcott, West Virginia have been abused by racists for decades. No matter who it is you honor, someone will object. And much as statues have been called into question over the years, biographies of statues have been the subject of much scrutiny. You won’t find much to debate with any of the multitude of children’s books about the creation of the Statue of Liberty, but what about Mount Rushmore? In that case you have land taken from the Lakota people by the U.S. government without their consent. So often, these books about famous statues and monuments are cheerleading sections for America. Yet only the smartest authors think to include moments that hat tip problematic elements in their creation. Our lives are greatly defined by the items, principles, activities, events or occupations that we’re most passionate about. Often these hallmarks are how others identify or remember us. The event of a life’s passing causes others to reflect on the deep importance those elements meant to the departed—and often how the deceased contributed to and honored those aspects. BOOKMUNCH Adventurous readers, devil-may-care readers, readers who are in it for the long haul - roll up