Voice: Roy Guthrie

All of the stone comes from Zimbabwe. When we first started

the sculpture movement 50 years ago we couldn't find stone.

But today, there is stone found all over the country and stones

of great beauty and different strengths and different hardnesses.

So it ranges from the springstone, which is very hard serpentine,

to the opal stone, which is a softer green serpentine, through to

granites and dolomites and marbles and limestones and then some

very unique stones like verdite, which is probably the rarest of the

3 great green stones; jade, malachite and verdite. Verdite is only

found in 2 deposits in the world and the highest quality verdite

comes from Zimbabwe.

So, the artists have used all of these different stones. The best artists

prefer the hardest stones and so they don't work in the soft soap

stones and soft serpentines, but use only the harder stones. But we

are rich in stone; we have beautiful stones throughout the country.