In An Imperfect World
The suspect slab started as a project for a celebrity who shall remain nameless, because he likely never saw the finished product. This choice piece of granite wasn’t going on a kitchen countertop, either; the end result would be a multinational-corporation-sized conference table, and a perfect stage for cutting the biggest deals.
When the time came for delivery, the celebrity’s decorator took a long look at the table, and rejected it. This wasn’t a quibble over workmanship or design; the table just wouldn’t do, and it ended up in the fabricator’s own conference room.
What’s the problem? The short course is that the designer didn’t find the table perfect. The long version shows a problem we usually don’t see, but need to recognize.
The brouhaha began, well, maybe 100 million years ago when some piece of foreign matter found its way into the igneous formation process that resulted in that particular vein of granite. That small bit disrupted the pattern of the stone enough that – in a flash-forward through the Ice Age, Bronze Age, Industrial Revolution and the Edmonton Oilers hockey dynasty – someone with a trained eye for design could spot it as a blemish.
What could be considered as foreign matter when dealing with rock that’s truly older than dirt is an interesting question in itself. We’re not talking about potato peels in turkey stuffing or dropping a French fry in the paint bucket here; it’s fossilized remains or some other bit that survives massive amounts of heat and pressure through the eons. It’s not a mistake.
The problem with the conference table didn’t come from bad-quality stone. Somebody – a teacher, a partner, a mentor, or even a previous fabricator – failed to make it clear that anything involving stone is natural. And, just like people, it can’t be perfect.
Most stone offered for conspicuous use – something we’ll see or work with every day – gets to those personal and public places because it looks great. That beauty creates a false impression, as clients from homeowners to top designers specifies stone for its beauty.
It’s also an easy trap for those of us in the trade. We forget the first lesson of stone through time: It works because, whether beautiful or beastly, it lasts.
Sure, black granite on a countertop gives even a cramped galley-style kitchen a touch of class, and turns any Lulamae Barnes kind of room into a Holly Golightly. So would black glass, which would make any kitchen counter elegant and totally unusable.
Stone earns its keep by staying tough. It resists (depending on different types) cuts, scratches, stains, yellowing, fade and the everyday beatings inflicted by a happy suburban family or a surly cleaning crew. It survives events short of absolute catastrophes, and stays on the job long after the tenant or homeowner packs up for other places.
Other materials offer similar performance, with good looks to match (at least when first installed). It’s where stone picks up another advantage that has nothing to do with perfection; while other substrates are manufactured, stone is created.
R. Veeramani, chairman of Gem Granites in Chennai, India, believes fervently in this, with stone exuding something close to a spiritual presence. In talking with him at length at this year’s Piedra in Madrid, Spain, he didn’t speak about product and slabs; he cited the connection with nature and its creation, and how stone is the one material that brings us close to that.
That may be a shade too ethereal for closing a remodeling job, but the essence remains important. How stone looks is part of nature itself, and it’s a feeling that rarely comes with anything made from some petroleum distillate.
Getting that natural feel, however, also means taking stone as it comes, aside from shaping and polishing. A dead-on diamond-match pattern makes for sharp work, but most jobs end up with a grain out of symmetry, or the odd swirl or fissure. These don’t affect quality, and shouldn’t be the cause for rejection, either.
What customers get with stone is a piece of nature, where the fabricator works with imperfect materials and turns them into workaday items that are tough and beautiful. As with all of nature, trees don’t grow perfectly straight, flowers bloom in different colors, and stone can look anything but regular.
It’s also the real thing. Getting the customer to understand that helps in the long run … and keeps nice conference tables heading out the door for good.
This article appeared in the October 2002 print edition of Stone Business. ©2002 Western Business Media Inc.