Collecting the stones

Zimbabwe is home to a wide range of stones ideal for sculpting. The Shona people mine these stones from across the country. Our carvers hire trucks to collect the stones, or hitchhike with them on the back of trucks.

To extract the stones, they are lifted by hand or hauled with rope. Due to the sheer weight of each stone, a ramp is used to pull them onto the back of a truck for transporting. They are delivered to Chitungwiza, just outside of Harare, and the high density suburbs of Harare where the carvers we work with live. Once in Chitungwiza or Harare, the stone is dumped off the back of the truck and the artist works on it where it falls as it is often too heavy to move.

The sculpting process

Our artists use a range of hand tools to carve the stone. For finer details they use files, and wet and dry sandpaper. Each sculpture takes anywhere from a few days to a few months to complete.

Once the artist is happy with their final product, the stone is heated on a wood fire and polished with wax while it is still hot. The wax is absorbed into the stone to give it a glossy shine and bring out its natural colours. The sculpture is then buffed with a cloth.

Check out the below images on the process of creating a Shona Stone Sculpture.