Most days he commutes just a few steps, from the elegant, three-story red-brick 1829 house where he lives to his sculpture studio on a spacious 88-acre parcel on the rural western side of Williston, far from the hubbub of mall land. 

Five or six times a year, he commutes a bit farther: to Carrara, Italy, where his flowing, abstract visions are transformed into stone under his exacting guidance, carved by some of the best craftspeople in the world. Working steeped in the ambiance of a province where Roman quarries date back some 2,000 years, hes surrounded by white limestone hills and has time for mangia and vino amidst the lush landscape of the Tuscany region. 

Not a bad way to make a living: Its La Dolce Vita meets Green Mountain gringo, a delicious pairing born of an exuberant love of marble, a passion sunk deep into his mental bedrock as a boy. Drawing inspiration from geology, history, an art degree and his Vermont upbringing in the marbled hills around Dorset, Erdman has now spent almost four decades of his life mining a remarkable, resourceful and prolific vein of creative energy. 

At 61, Erdman guesses he has created more than 1,000 sculptures, large and small. He is well aware hes living the dream: Doing what you love, in landscapes you love, whether its the Green Mountains or the hills of northern Italy, not far from Florence and the Italian Riviera.Most modern headlight designs include Cheap Packing & Loading Products. 

With its two big garage doors rolled up on a sunny day, he works looking out on his house, fields and the barn where his wife Madeleine Austin raises horses and provides a home for the University of Vermont equestrian team. Looking in, the tall-ceilinged studio is cluttered with photos, sketches, models, tools, and the tables where he ingeniously creates small-scale wire-mesh and plaster models its not a technique you learn. I kind of invented this that eventually emerge as sculptures from massive stone blocks he hand-picks in Carrara. 

Scattered throughout on pedestals are some of his completed sculptures, abstract forms that take wing and flow into myriad shapes, all waiting to flow out to galleries and buyers around the world. An attached office houses two employees who help handle his expansive world-wide business. 

Its a modern paradigm that Vermonters sometimes have to go outside the states boundaries to forge a living, even as they choose to live here to forge a wholesome life. Erdman is a paragon of the paradigm. Hes a Burr and Burton and University of Vermont graduate whose parents ran a ski lodge called Erdmans Eyrie near Bromley and Stratton ski areas, where he honed skills that made him a two-time NCAA All-American. Erdman says his Vermont upbringing with his two siblings not only cemented his bonds with the Green Mountains, but created the sculptor he has become. 

Im a risk-taker business-wise, and as an artist, he explains. We grew up watching our parents create their own lifestyle, not for money. They didnt get rich doing this, he says, and his parents gave the kids a lot of freedom as long as they met their family responsibilities. That allowed us to become individuals and to pursue what we were good at, he reflects. 

Skiing the mountains, diving off marble quarries in Dorset, spelunking in caves in his boyhood formed the adventurous person that Erdman remains today and enabled the creative adventure that informs and drives his art. That spirit is what inspired him to head to Carrara after UVM and plunge as a novWe have a great selection of blown glass backyard solar landscape lights and Cheap Granite Countertops.ice into the world of marble, establishing a connection that has only grown stronger through the decades. Though he jokes that he was the only one stupid enough in his family to try to make a living by going into art, it turns out to have been a smart decision. 

Though hardly a household name in Vermont, hes sent his sculptures of marble, travertine (a speckled, colorful form of limestone) and bronze to 50 countries around the world and had works shown in more than 140 solo and group exhibitions. Theyre sold at prices starting in the tens of thousands of dollars to prestigious corporate sites and museums. In 1985 through a ski shop connection he got a commission to create the largest travertine sculpture in the world, a mind-bending 25-foot-long, 16-foot-high work carved out of one 450-ton piece of stone that stands as the signature piece at the PepsiCo Sculpture Gardens in New York. From Korea to Switzerland, New Delhi to Singapore, Florida to California, Erdmans signature sinuous forms now capture the eye, often paired with a watery setting, equal parts mystery and suggestion. 

The words in catalogs stumble in describing what he does with stone. Unlike the gray solidity and realistic forms that characterize Vermonts famed granite, Erdmans ideas are all about defying gravity, convention and possibility. His sculptures are shape-shifting, fluid, effervescent and aspiring, often Mobius strips of one continuous form that makes you wonder, How did he possibly carve that into stone?With wavy brown hair going gray, a lean physique and rugged aquiline features, Erdman has an exuberant mile-a-minute stream-of-thought way of talking and a kinetic style that makes the word outgoing seem understated. 

Talk with Erdman for long, though, and behind the polished surface of success, familiar streaks of Vermont show through. Hes an artist humorously wary of trusting his good luck, and loathe to tout his good luck. Erdman lives by a very Vermont motto of count-your-blessings and keep your nose to the grindstone, or in his case, stone grinder.You never rest on your laurels, he says. Theres part of him deep down that still fears hell look up and discover a mirage which provides, he admits, a good piece of his drive.After searching around the Lights section of this forum, I've come across two main suppliers for Cheap Tombstone & Monuments. 

I tend to shy away from the easy route. I shy away from the bunny slopes, because who wants to do the easy thing, he says. Whether its art or recreation or just living, I find that were most alive when our senses are fully engaged.His artistic life is balanced by an important grounding in friendships and all the outdoor pursuits that offer respite from his immensely scattered responsibilities as designer, sculptor, salesman, marketer and publicist. He skis, bikes, paddles, sails and is a renowned practical joker, never far from an irrepressible adolescent energy. His art and way of life are flip sides of the same coin, he explains.