T Barny has carved out a space for the Möbius in stone art
Upon reaching the parking area of T Barny’s Workshop and Studio off Alexander Valley Road, the first thing one notices is a gray patina over everything: a layer of fine dust over the flat tables, on the broadleaf plants, and especially in the workshop and every item in it.
Including the sculptor himself, T Barny. He’s a big, bearded guy with a twinkle in his eye, greeting visitors with a grin and a handshake, his work apron and hat covered in dust. The workshop is an open shed of tools—saws, chisels, sanders of every shape, rotating tables to allow 360-degree access to the sculptures-in-process—everything covered in that patina of gray powder.
“We make dust, basically,” he says, though he says he’s cleaned it up a bit for our visit. Tidier, perhaps, but it’s hard to imagine the workshop of an artist who “creates stone into abstract shapes,” and has been doing so for 45 years using rock from 213 kinds of stone from 56 countries and several states, as being anything but dusty.
“As you can see, it’s loud and dusty,” he yells over the noise of his assistant Hayley Pierce working a large drill nearby. “I have big fans and normally I’m wearing a mask and hearing protection. Luckily when I first started off in 1980, I was dating a gal that was working for OSHA, and she was pretty adamant about wearing protection.”
Welcome to the World of T Barny
That would be about the time the young landscape architect, then 24, decided to go full time into his art and the design motif that defines his work even today, the Möbius strip. It’s a well-known paradox of physical space: a band—of paper, of fabric, of stone—twisted once to create what seems to be a one-sided, three-dimensional surface.
“I was shown it in the second grade,” Barny recalls, “and went, ‘This is the coolest thing ever.’ At first I was carving it in wood, and progressed to doing it in stone.” Celtic knots, trefoils and quatrefoils followed as Barny incorporated his Scottish heritage into his work.
“I do other things now, and a lot of times my pieces are not recognizable as a Möbius strip,” he adds. “But they still have one edge that goes around and through the piece and comes back where you started. It’s not as obvious as just the twisted paper.”
For him, it’s more than just about the stone. “It’s a way scientists or astronomers envision the universe as being infinite, but finite,” he says. “It just keeps going, keeps going, keeps going.” The concepts of art and topology animate him.
Back toward the house, we pass through Stone World, a small garden furnished with a series of sculptures in different stones, a number of his works on display. There are organic shapes in translucent amber, Carrera marble, limestones and sandstones and sodalite. Many of them are defined not so much by their shape and their stone but by the space created by the sculpture, that hole in the middle of the paradox.
Art Trails Weekends
For two successive weekends Art Trails visitors can see the sculptures for themselves between 10am and 4pm. T Barny has participated in the Art Trails event for years, and always finds it not only a chance to show off his work but also an opportunity to sell some pieces. He takes it further than that: laser-scanned images of his big stone puzzles can be reduced in size for a digital printer, so earrings and other gift items are handily available.
He is hospitable as we enter the indoor gallery, which is built out from the porch of the house. “Would you like a glass of fresh water from Sausal Creek?” he asks, indicating a pitcher of clear water and two wine glasses. “If it were later in the day I’d offer you some Alexander Valley wine. Sculpture and wine go together really well.”
Melinda Barnard comes through with the two happy dogs who live on the property. She’s almost as friendly as he is, a former professor of communications at Sonoma State. One wants to spend some time here, maybe pick out a piece and run the card.
Their local fan base includes Lynda Jordan and her husband Louis, of Healdsburg. “We have collected three of his sculptures over the years, two marble and one commissioned Möbius of Utah Calcite,” she says. “It’s amazing how he can get a medium of stone so thin that light shines through it, almost like a piece of glass.”
T Barny Sculpture is the northwesternmost art gallery on the upcoming Art Trails map, No. 86 of 138, though Kelly Chappie fiber arts (#87) is farther up Hwy 101, in Cloverdale. There are several other Healdsburg-area studios among this year’s participants, including architect-sculptor Alan B. Cohen and painter Nell Rubinstein, though most of the 168 participants run in a great swath from Occidental to Sonoma.
“What makes Art Trails special is the personal connection,” says Serafina Palandech, director of the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. “It’s not just about looking at finished pieces. It’s about hearing the stories behind them, understanding the process and seeing what fuels each artist’s creativity. That kind of exchange is powerful for both artists and visitors.”
With T Barny, that exchange is a pleasure.
T Barny Sculpture is located at 4370 Pine Flat Rd., phone 707.331.8378. More about Art Trails at sonomacountyarttrails.org.
