Acheiropoietic tales and the lithic imagination

In this paper, I argue for our innate ability to peer deep inside of a block marble, and to discover the hidden interiority of the material. The inside of a block of marble, when cut open and exposed to the eye, creates an extraordinary meeting point between the imagination and material depth. Beginning with Byzantine practices of marble cutting, there are several material dreams or reveries to be explored: the first is to explore factures that are acheiropoietic - "not made by the hands of man". Because of the alluring veining and patterning found by cutting a block of marble, stone and especially marble have been frequently at the center of these discussions. Further on, I will discuss how the allure of marble surfaces resides precisely in their capacity to invoke images of depth through their associations with water and the crystalline imagination.