The Captive (or ‘unfinished’) figures of Michelangelo are the primary inspiration for the series by Brian Richer. Richer, the Creative Director at Castor Design is also a trained stone carver. He has worked on many architecturally significant buildings in North America, and has explored captives for years.

The Captive sculptures are simple Platonic forms, hand-carved with a mallet and chisel – no power tools were used in their carving. Unlike most sculptors—who built a model and then marked up their block of marble to know where to carve—Michelangelo always worked freehand. He saw the sculptor’s job was to reveal the work that already existed within the stone. In these figures one can still see the grooves from the chisel, the process of the work, revealing the hand of the sculptor.

The finished collection is one that presents simple classic forms: a stool, side table, and a bowl emerging from rough blocks of Indiana Limestone partially consumed by the natural material. The result is both recognizable and venerable at once.