Button: Event Raised
Profile of MLK Protest
By Sandy Vondrasek

Flanked by Barre’s top granite carvers, Clint Button and African-America artist Gilbert Young brought their "King Is Ours" protest from the South to Barre last Thursday.

The protest was launched in February by Young, after he learned that a massive granite monument to Martin Luther King, Jr., is being carved in China, of Chinese granite.

Button, a Chelsea native who learned granite carving in Barre and now lives in South Carolina, has worked in recent months to bring the granite industry into the protest.

In partnership with the industry, Button has posited a scenario in which the monument could be still carved in the U.S., at the new Stone Arts School of the Barre Granite Museum.

The November 8 press conference, at the base of the Italian Stonecutter monument in Barre’s Dente Park, drew all of Vermont’s top carvers and sculptors, including Juiliani Cecchinelli, who designed the monument, and Bethel’s Philip Paini, who carved it. Randolph sculptor Jim Sardonis, who carves his large pieces in rented space in a Barre granite studio, was also there.

The men stood silently as Young, and then Button, issued their pleas for the public to sign the online King Is Ours petition, and to contact their legislators about the issue.

Young vowed to continue fighting the Chinese commission, and urged others to join him.

"One thing you have in common with Dr. King," he said, "is he was just one individual—and we can each do what we can."

In his comments, Button saluted the master carvers around him, "who stand in solidarity, fighting for the granite industry."

Also addressing the crowd—comprised mostly of media representatives—was John Wong of Rochester.

Wong, a longtime member of the Los Angeles-based Visual Arts Guild, read a statement from the Guild, a non-profit group that promotes "human rights through the visual arts," Wong said. Guild spokesperson Ann Lau, in her statement read by Wong, said using a Chinese artist known for his memorial statues of Mao Tse-Tung would "tarnish" the memory of Dr. King.

Imports Hit Industry

The issue of low-cost granite imports has already had a negative impact on the U.S. industry. In interviews after the formal press conference concluded, several Barre-based carvers said they had to lay off employees due to imports, mostly carved gravestones from China and India. Master carver Eric Oberg said he has been approached by consumers who ordered the import stones, and then, dissatisfied, brought them to him to be altered.

Button said the fact that $10 million in federal monies has been authorized for the King project should mean that it must put it out for open bid. The U.S. industry, he said, never had a chance to bid on the piece.

The Nov. 8 events in Barre included tours of the granite studio of George Kurjanowicz and Rock of Ages quarry, both of which were briefly visited in the spring of 2006 by the Martin Luther King Foundation.

Kurjanowicz said he tried to contact the foundation representatives later, "but the phone number didn’t work; and the email didn’t work."

Back in South Carolina this week, Button said the Nov. 8 event brought a flurry of media attention to the campaign, raising the profile of the protest.

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