Keith Phillips was brought to tears as he stood in front of the community that supported his life’s work on Tuesday evening.
He choked up as he acknowledged the people who helped make his dream come true.
In early 2023, Phillips, a stone cutter for nearly four decades, founded the Tenino Stone Carvers Guild to extend the heritage of stone carving in the city known as the “Stone City” for its rich sandstone history.
On Tuesday, Aug. 22, the guild held an event at the Tenino Quarry House for a quarry workshop tour and fundraiser, where Phillips was asked to speak.
“My dream is coming to fruition in that we have a strong group of carvers and cutters and to carry on the tradition of traditional stonework, to build buildings and to help families,” he said to the crowd.
The event celebrated the guild’s partnership with the Parks, Arts, Recreation, and Culture Foundation of Thurston County and a $143,000 grant from the City of Tenino to help create a nonprofit organization to continue the tradition of stone carving. The guild hosted the fundraising event to auction stone work, sell merchandise and receive donations from community members to raise the seed money for initial expenses that will be reimbursed.
With the donations and grant money, the Tenino Stone Carvers Guild will convert its facilities into a classroom for Phillips and Myrna Orsini of the Monarch Sculpture Park to teach the next generation of stone carvers.
“We’re trying to share with the community our vision and raise some money to get the educational wing of our operations going,” Guild Director Bill Lenker said. “It’s nice to have a common community organization. We’re celebrating everybody’s history and the art that has come out of this town too.”
Washington state Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, who helped the guild receive the grant, said that the stone carvers deserved assistance because of their hard work over the years.
“The hardest work is being done by the people in the stone-carvers community. They’re the ones that really deserve all the recognition and all the thanks for the work that they’re doing,” Orcutt said. “A lot of the trades of old have faded away, and they’re not letting that happen.”
Approximately 100 community members attended the fundraising event, including Tenino Mayor Wayne Fournier, who acknowledged the importance of continuing the art of stone cutting.
“In a world that is always changing, we will always need skilled tradespeople that know how to speak through the stone and produce for us classic works that we know will last generations,” Fournier said to the crowd. “It is now our responsibility to ensure that one of mankind’s first occupations lives on and is continued to be passed down from master to student and preserve one of our most ancient skills.”
Learn more about the Tenino Stone Carvers on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/theteninostonecarvers.
