The stunning bear sculpture, "Dance of Joy" is one of nearly a dozen anorthosite pieces by leading Nain Inuit carver, Gilbert Hay.
Gilbert was introduced to this stone when anorthosite was discovered near his northern Labrador home, and a large quarry opened for the mining and export of this most sought after building stone. With ready access to the raw material, Gilbert began using appropriate tools to cut and polish this very hard granitic stone, that quickly became known as "blue eyes" due to the fact that it flashed with skyblue iridescence from the coin-sized crystals of Labradorite that are embedded in each of the sculptures he produced.
Geologists have long explanations and terms to describe the origin, the age and compositionof anorthosite. It is found in southern Finland and northern Labrador, which has the lighter grays with the Labradorite crystals than the deep, dark granite of the Finish anorthosite. For more information, one can go to wikipedia to get the geologists' explanations and details.
For more than two decades, Gilbert Hay has been creating his magnificent anorthosite sculptures which have been finding homes worldwide and still can be seen and purchased at The Birches Gallery.
