About the Series: 

Great art doesn't just appear on gallery walls, it emerges from hours of work, experimentation, and dedication within the artist's studio.

In the Studio is our new series exploring the creative process behind the work we show. We share interviews with LaFontsee Gallery artists to discuss what drives their practice, where they find inspiration, and what a day in the studio actually looks like.

These conversations go beyond the finished piece. We're interested in the materials that changed everything, the breakthroughs and false starts, and the experiences that spark new directions.

When you understand an artist's practice, you see their work differently. You see it more completely. You connect with the artist, and their work more.  

New conversations with LaFontsee artists, published every two weeks.

Adam Boyle

Tell us about your background. What first drew you to art, and how did your path as an artist begin?

I grew up surrounded by Native American art and tools, objects that carried stories and a deep connection to the earth. Each piece held memory and culture and spoke in a language beyond words. My own path began in industry. I worked as a machinist, learning patience, precision, and respect for material through steady hands and repeated practice. Those early years taught me the rhythm of work and the quiet satisfaction that comes from shaping something enduring with care.

From there I moved into engineering, where I learned to see form before it existed, to solve problems in three dimensions, and to measure possibilities as well as materials. Leadership followed, guiding people, ideas, and projects, and teaching me that intention and process are inseparable. Each stage built on the last, layering discipline, observation, and thought in ways that now inform how I approach art.

In 2017 I met a retired stonemason at an art fair and his mentorship opened a door I had not known existed. Around the same time a professor encouraged me to explore creative expression beyond the technical life I had known. Stone carving became the bridge between what I had learned and the language I now speak with my hands. In 2020 I named this path Infinite Series Arts to honor the endless discoveries each block of stone offers. 

Beyond a personal studio, it is a refuge for curiosity, a space for reflection, and a place where intention, form, and presence can quietly converse.

How do you define your practice.  Tell us about the materials, processes, and ideas that anchor your work?

My practice begins with stone, a material with its own patience, memory, and voice. I am drawn to it because it asks for attention and commitment and responds to presence with subtle guidance. Every cut and every hollow is part of a dialogue between intention and discovery, between what I hope to reveal and what the material demands.

The tools I use are simple but deliberate chisels, hammers, grinders, and polishers. They are instruments through which ideas from mathematics, geometry, and philosophy take form. I am as concerned with what I remove as with what I leave, because absence carries meaning and frames presence. In this way negative space is alive and essential to the work.

My background in machining and engineering informs every decision. I understand tolerance and measurement, but now precision serves thought and reflection as much as form. Where I once pursued perfection for function, I now pursue beauty anchored in purpose and meditation. My practice balances structure and intuition, control and surrender, presence and absence, so that the finished work speaks with quiet authority while leaving room for the viewer to enter and reflect.

What themes or questions are central to your current body of work?

I am drawn to themes of infinity, absence, and the limits of language. So much of what I explore cannot be said outright. Words often fall short, and art becomes the language that steps in where vocabulary fails. I return often to Wittgenstein’s idea that the limits of our language are the limits of our world. Through my work, I try to expand those limits, to give shape to what cannot be easily spoken.

Sartre’s idea that nothingness haunts being has also become an anchor in my process. It reminds me that emptiness is not void but presence waiting to be understood. Negative space is alive with tension and meaning. When I carve, I am shaping both what is there and what is not, giving form to the unseen structures that hold everything together.

These ideas guide how I work with stone. The material carries permanence, yet what I create often feels fleeting, balanced on the edge between presence and absence. My hope is to invite reflection, to encourage others to sense the quiet infinity within the finite.
Sartre’s idea that nothingness haunts being also shapes my practice. The notion that emptiness carries its own presence fascinates me. I often think of negative space as active, as something that defines and gives meaning to what surrounds it. In carving, that means shaping both what is there and what is not.

Ultimately, my work explores how precision and philosophy can meet in form. I want to reveal the quiet tension between what we can know and what we can only feel.

Where do you find inspiration, both within the studio and beyond it?

In the studio, inspiration begins with the stone itself. Each block carries its own history, shaped over millions of years. Its veins, imperfections, and hidden possibilities are like whispers waiting to be heard. I spend time observing, feeling the contours and textures, allowing the material to suggest its own path. The act of working becomes a dialogue, a back and forth between intention and discovery, between what I hope to reveal and what the stone demands of me.

Beyond the studio, inspiration comes from the quiet patterns of the natural world, the hidden order in what often appears chaotic. The spiral of a shell, the flow of a river, the way light falls through a grove of trees all teach lessons in rhythm, proportion, and harmony. Music and philosophy provide a parallel structure for thought, reminding me that meaning exists both in what is seen and in what is felt. The compositions of Ludovico Einaudi often accompany my work, his notes echoing the same patience and inevitability I seek in carving, a gentle persistence that mirrors the rhythm of the hands shaping stone.

Travel, observation, and curiosity constantly feed the practice. Each day offers a new lesson if one is willing to pay attention, to notice the geometry of shadows, the cadence of movement, or the interplay between light and material. These experiences ripple back into the studio, shaping choices, guiding decisions, and deepening the conversation between mind, hand, and stone. Inspiration is never separate from process, it is the pulse that drives both observation and creation.

How has your practice shifted over time? Were there particular moments or turning points that shaped its direction?

When I began, my work was grounded in the literal. I focused on learning the discipline of the craft, on understanding how the tools spoke through the stone. The early years were about control, precision, and learning the boundaries of the material. That foundation was essential, but with time I learned to loosen my hold.

As the years passed, the work became more conceptual, more open to discovery. I realized that mastery is not just about control but about knowing when to let go. Many of my most meaningful breakthroughs came from unexpected turns in the process, from fractures, slips, or changes in texture that revealed a new direction. Those moments taught me that the material is not passive. It has a will of its own, and when I allow it to speak, the results are more honest.

Today, I work with greater trust in both the process and myself. The work has become less about perfection and more about dialogue, a balance between structure and intuition. My practice is no longer only about shaping stone, but about shaping patience, attention, and presence.

What does a day in your studio typically look like?

A day in the studio begins in quiet observation. I spend time with the stone, letting my hands and eyes trace its surface, feeling its weight, listening to its suggestions. There is a rhythm in this practice, a slow awakening to what is possible within the material. Each block has its own story, and the work begins by understanding and honoring that story.

As the day unfolds, the hands move in measured repetition. Chisels and hammers, grinders and polishers mark the passage of time. There is a cadence to the work, punctuated by pauses to step back, to see the form emerging, to sense what the stone is asking for next. It is a balance of energy and stillness, of deliberate intention and openness to surprise.

Sometimes the unexpected occurs, a fracture or shift that alters the path. Those moments teach patience and humility and invite discovery. By evening, the pace slows and reflection takes its place. I may read, listen to music, or simply sit in quiet, letting the day’s labor settle into understanding. Each session is a meditation, a layering of effort, observation, and contemplation. The studio is not simply a place of making but a space where thought and material meet, where presence and patience shape the work as much as the tools in my hands.

Which artists, writers, or cultural influences have had a lasting impact on your practice?

I have always admired those who shape meaning through discipline and grace. The masters like Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Dürer, and Bernini remind me that art can be both technical and transcendent. Their precision was not a cage but a gateway, allowing emotion and intellect to meet in perfect balance. Escher and Mucha taught me to see beauty as structure, to find rhythm in repetition and wonder in the geometry of nature.

Music has also become an inseparable part of my creative rhythm. The work of Ludovico Einaudi often fills my studio as I carve. His compositions move with the same quiet persistence that stone demands, each note unfolding into the next with a sense of inevitability and calm. His music mirrors the process of sculpting, where subtle variations build toward something larger than themselves. It is not loud or commanding, but it carries an emotional depth that lingers.

Listening to Einaudi while I work reminds me that art is a form of listening. The stone has its own tempo, its own cadence, and like a pianist finding the right touch, I try to move in harmony with it. Those moments of alignment, where sound and form seem to breathe together, are what stay with me long after the tools are set down.

When viewers encounter your work at LaFontsee, what do you hope they experience or take away?

I hope they pause. That single act of stillness is where the connection begins. My work asks for time and attention. It invites the viewer to slow their pace and let their eyes settle into the rhythm of the stone. At first, they might see only form and polish, but I hope they begin to sense the structure that lies beneath. Every curve and hollow carries the trace of countless choices, each one deliberate and exacting. What they see on the surface is only part of the story.

The unseen order is what holds each piece together. Beneath the form there is a quiet system of geometry and balance that gives the work its strength. It is a kind of architecture that can be felt more than seen. I want the viewer to sense that hidden harmony, the alignment between skill, patience, and intuition.

The negative space of my labor haunts every piece. It is what remains of all that has been removed, the hours and effort that have vanished into the final form. Those absences are not empty. They carry memory, discipline, and the quiet residue of the process itself.

When someone stands before my work, I hope they feel the weight of what is present and what is not. I hope they see beyond the surface to the structure beneath, the order inside the silence. If they walk away with a feeling that lingers, even if they cannot name it, then the work has done its part.

What are you working on now, and what’s on the horizon?

Right now I am focused on a series that explores the balance between precision and openness. Each piece is an experiment in pushing boundaries while embracing the constraints that stone naturally provides. The material teaches patience and humility. It sets limits that guide me rather than confine me, and within those limits I find the freedom to explore form, line, and space in ways I could not anticipate.

I am especially interested in the tension between what is immediately visible and what lies beneath. The surface draws attention with its polish and clarity, but it is tethered to a deeper complexity of thought and intention. Every curve, hollow, and edge carries the weight of decisions made, of constraints negotiated, and of ideas distilled into form. The visible beauty invites the eye, while the invisible architecture invites reflection.

Looking ahead I am preparing to work on larger and more ambitious sculptures that extend this dialogue into space itself. I want viewers to experience both the immediate and the contemplative, to sense the structure beneath the surface and the labor that shapes it. At the same time I am creating opportunities to share the craft with others, to guide them in learning the discipline and patience that stone demands. Teaching is another form of exploration, another way of stretching the boundaries of what is possible while remaining tethered to the lessons of material and method.

In every new project I aim to harmonize attention and depth, beauty and complexity, presence and absence, so that each piece carries both the immediacy of form and the quiet weight of reflection.

Outside of the studio, what sustains you and fuels your creativity?

Family, nature, and music sustain me. Time spent walking in the woods or along a river clears the mind and sharpens the senses. Observing the subtle geometry in leaves, shells, and stones informs the work in ways that cannot be planned.

Quiet fellowship with trusted friends and mentors also nourishes me. Shared reflection, conversation, and service to community remind me that creativity thrives not in isolation but in connection. There is a rhythm to these relationships, a pattern of guidance and giving, of ritual and responsibility, that mirrors the patience required in the studio and enriches the way I approach each piece.

Reading, contemplation, and stillness provide spaces where ideas can take shape unseen. These moments are as essential as hands-on labor. They create the balance necessary to return to the studio with intention and clarity. Creativity thrives not only in making but in living fully, observing closely, and engaging with the world in ways that honor both the visible and the unseen.

Want to learn more about Adam Boyle? 

Visit his artist page to explore his full collection, biography, and available works.

There's nothing quite like experiencing art in person! The texture, scale, and presence of a piece reveal themselves in ways a screen simply cannot capture. 

We invite you to see Adam Boyle's work firsthand at the gallery - stop by during open hours, or make an appointment today!