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By Mary Therese Biebel mbiebel@timesleader.com
Features Writer
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With a curve here, a sweep there and help from his gas-powered, diamond-blade saw, sculptor David Green of Harveys Lake can turn a boulder or block of marble into a bird. Or a sentinel. Or a female torso.

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Sculptor David Green of Harveys Lake has his work on display in the ‘Figures and Figments’ exhibit at Mainstreet Galleries in Kingston.

CLARK VAN ORDEN photos/THE TIMES LEADER

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`Red Alabaster Figure’ is one of David Green’s more realistic feminine torsos.

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But Green’s bird isn’t the kind where you point to feathers and talons. It’s more a suggestion of flight.

His sentinel, similarly abstract, is a hint of watchful tension rather than a guard with a weapon or night-vision goggles.

And, while some of the feminine forms he has carved from marble or wood clearly represent women – slim-waisted, goddess-like women -- one of them could be taken just as easily for a cobra.

“Yes, that one’s very serpentine,” Green, 60, said last week as he and gallery co-owner Sally Casey finished setting up the “Figures and Figments” exhibit of his work that will be on display at Mainstreet Galleries in Kingston through June 5.

“I love having his work in the gallery,” said Casey, who hopes people who are attending next weekend’s Fine Arts Fiesta will cross the bridge to Kingston to see it. “It’s amazing to me.

“I put this beautiful fish on my coffee table,” she said. “I wanted to show people you don’t have to have sculpture on a pedestal against the wall with a spotlight on it.”

As she spoke, Casey lifted the fish easily and cradled it in her hand.

Many of Green’s other sculptures, in contrast, are prohibitively heavy. “It’s almost like they’re glued down,” Casey said.

“That’s why you have so many more painters than sculptors,” Green said with a laugh as he bent at the knees and hoisted one of the bigger pieces.

When he gets tired of “rolling and flipping” the heavy material, which he must do to carve from different angles, Green expects he’ll eventually work with lighter media.

For now, it’s a thrill to work with Vermont marble or Portuguese marble or the occasional piece of Carrara marble.

That last variety is the same kind Michelangelo used for his famous statue of King David, and it still comes from the same quarry in Tuscany, said Green, who has a stone broker send him samples from around the world.

Years ago, Green worked as a builder – constructing houses and remodeling. Sculpting might have been more satisfying, he said, but “I didn’t torture myself about it. Sculpting wouldn’t have put a daughter through grad school.”

Nowadays, with his daughter’s education complete, Green is primarily a sculptor.

“I think and feel in three dimensions,” he said. “Once I start working I have that cognitive shift from left brain to right brain. The phone could ring, and it wouldn’t matter.”

The recession has slowed the market for sculpture, Green said, but collectors are still buying his pieces. He also creates jewelry displays for Valentine’s Jewelry in Dallas, which is owned by his wife, Elva Valentine.

IF YOU GO

What: ‘Figures and Figments,’ sculpture by local artist David Green

When: Through June 5

Where: Mainstreet Galleries, 370 Pierce St., Kingston. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday

More info: 287-5589.