![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Oculus-scaled.jpg\")
A project is lit in the studio of Quarra Stone Company based in Sun Prairie. Photo courtesy of Quarra Stone Company<\/p>\n
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Durham, originally from Virginia, founded a stone fabrication business called Quarra Stone Company in Madison in 1989 after a stint at a limestone quarry in Illinois. Growing from six employees to a team of more than 60 today, the company has worked on architectural projects for Wisconsin institutions like the Chazen Museum of Art and the state capitol.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The scope of the business has also grown. Quarra has worked on memorials nationwide, from a project honoring enslaved laborers in Virginia to a plaza in Memphis recognizing workers in the 1968 sanitation workers\u2019 strike and its role in the Civil Rights Movement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2022, the company broke ground on its current headquarters in Sun Prairie \u2014 a 25-acre campus totalling $19 million.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IAMAMAN-Plaza.jpg\")
A section of the monument \u201cI AM A MAN Plaza\u201d stands in Memphis, Tenn. Photo courtesy of Quarra Stone Company<\/p>\n
New tech for classic art<\/p>\n
Durham\u2019s foray into the world of fine art began with a love of the classics.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was always impressed with work of artists like Michelangelo or Bernini \u2026 where a piece might look like a veil over a face and you would think, \u2018well that just looks exactly like cloth,\u2019\u201d Durham said. \u201cI could touch it, and it should feel like cloth, but it\u2019s not. It\u2019s marble.\u201d<\/p>\n
Durham has updated the art of stone carving though \u2014 a form of expression dating back thousands of years \u2014 with new technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Kuka-e1754677259260.jpg\")
A robot owned and operated by Quarra Stone Company carves into stone. Photo courtesy of Quarra Stone Company<\/p>\n
In 2004, the company acquired its first robot. The robots Quarra uses have a reach of 10 feet in every direction and include rotating tables, Durham said, allowing artists to rotate a piece of art to work on different sides of a piece of stone. The robots follow schematics called a \u201ctool path\u201d that tell the machine where and how fast to cut stone. Durham said most of Quarra\u2019s projects are begun by a robot but finished by a human carver.<\/p>\n
The company now has three robot carvers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere aren\u2019t a great deal of laypeople who understand how robots work,\u201d Durham said. \u201cIn a sense, the human is telling the robot which tool to use, how fast to move it. Robots just do what they\u2019re told.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stone milling company Robotor estimates<\/a> that carving a statue entirely by hand would take nearly double the number of days to complete and would cost roughly 50 percent more than using robots and finishing the project by hand.<\/p>\n Durham said robots have their place in creating art, even if they lack the nuance a human carver can impart.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the artwork that\u2019s produced with the robot has an overall whiteness \u2026 it\u2019s almost like it\u2019s bleached,\u201d Durham said. \u201cIf you mill a piece of white marble with a diamond-electroplated tool, there\u2019s a certain amount of vibration and hammering that takes place, that makes all the grains of marble read uniformly white.\u201d<\/p>\n Human carvers can additionally create light and shadow, Durham continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n Durham expands fine art effort with purchase of Italian studio<\/p>\n In Wisconsin, Quarra is working on projects for the Veterans Administration and fine art for a U.S.-based artist who asked that their art be made by a Quarra robot because of the smooth finish.<\/p>\n But their priciest work is being done on the other side of the world.<\/p>\n In October, Durham purchased Franco Cervietti<\/a>, a respected sculpture workshop studio in Italy. Durham said this shop is producing pieces that will be sold to a client for between $65 to $70 million each.<\/p>\n![\"Several](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Cervietti-4-scaled.jpg\")
Statues are displayed at the stone carving workshop, Franco Cervietti, in Pietrasanta, Italy. Quarra Stone Company announced the purchase of the Italian workshop in April. Photo courtesy of Quarra Stone Company<\/p>\n