You can not come to Brac and not be amazed by the stone. There are rocks and stone everywhere. Houses, fences, windbreaks, signs, jewelry, everything is made of stone. Brac is known for its pure white limestone with very few veins or water impurities. This makes it ideal for carving, and it is more dense and durable as a limestone having similar properties to marble. The pure white stone was used by the Roman and the buildings such as Split's Diocletian's Palace, one of the best preserved Roman structures, the parliament buildings in Vienna and Budapest and reportedly the White House. (Although when I went to fact check our tour guide, I could find different information online stating it was used from everything from just the columns to full reconstruction after the original sandstone started to crumble).
The town of Pusisca is near one of the oldest stone quarries and has a stone mason school that has been open for over a hundred years. The school hosts a three and four-year program that start at age 14. It is a boarding school that mainly has boys, but a few girls as well. They teach the techniques and history of stone cutting with many students taking jobs in restoration after graduation. The school is adding an additional shop next year also to teach machine stone cutting given the change in technology but will continue to teach the hand techniques used for over 1000 years.
We got a lovely last minute tour from twin brothers who were sent to the school by their father. They grew up in mainland Croatia, and he wanted them to have some useful life skills, so chose this vocational school for them. Our own private little tour included hands-on learning and life lessons from Far-Far (who was a woodworking teacher for his career) on the importance of eye and hearing protection. It was beautiful seeing their work, and like so many arts I had an entirely different appreciation for a water fountain when learned it would have taken a stone caver 2-3 years to complete and what went into making each stone column appear identical.
The outside of the school was surrounded by hand cut sculptures like this one.
I really enjoyed this sculpture in the center of town. A teacher? A conversation? The minority and the majority talking through an issue?
Learning about the work of a stone mason.
We all had to give it a shot.
Little one can hit hard when she wants to.