Ellie Ebony Whirl

Born from the swirling spirit of Disney's Fantasia, Ellie Ebony Whirl is caught mid-spin, her trunk twisting skyward, ears twirling in the wind, and body alive with motion. Sculpted from rich Marquina marble, this character embodies both gravity and imagination. A tribute to movement, magic and motion frozen in black marble.

Ellie Ebony Whirl

I grew up loving that moment in Disney’s Fantasia where forms behave like music where a line can pirouette and a silhouette can keep time. “Ellie Ebony Whirl” came from chasing that feeling in stone: the idea that you can trap a spin inside a rock and still have it feel airborne?

I started with a block of Marquina marble ink black with shy veins that only confess themselves under light. On day one I drew a spiral around the block in chalk, like a cyclone you might see on a weather map. That line became my compass. Every cut was about protecting the turn: a trunk that corkscrews skyward, ears that behave like sails, a body tilted just enough to suggest the next beat.

Marble is honest; it rewards commitment and punishes hesitation. I roughed in the twist with point chisels, then stepped down to rasps to soften the torque into a single gesture. The funny part? An elephant doesn’t usually get described as light but balance is everything. If the center shifts a few millimeters too far, the whole thing looks like it’s bracing for a fall instead of dancing. So I kept testing the silhouette from the floor, from the doorway, from where a viewer might first meet her. The goal was simple: if you squint, you should still feel the whirl.

The polish is the mischief maker. Black marble will mirror your studio back at you, and suddenly motion appears where there is none. Those sliding highlights are my invisible orchestra crescendo across an ear, staccato on the trunk, a hush along the belly. Up close, the surface is liquid; step away, and the mass returns. That on off rhythm became the personality of the piece: gravity and imagination sharing the same body.

People often ask why an elephant. For me, the elephant is a keeper of memory. It’s the weight of experience with a stubborn willingness to play. In Ellie Ebony Whirl, the play wins. She’s midspin, ears flirting with the wind, trunk spelling a note you can’t quite hear. At 40 centimeters high, she’s intimate enough for a shelf but carries herself like a stage.

If you circle her, the story changes another little Fantasia trick. From one side, she’s pure velocity. From the other, she’s a breath between steps. I like work that behaves differently depending on where you stand; it lets the viewer finish the choreography. And somewhere in that loop, I hope you feel the same thing I chased in the studio: the moment when stone forgets its weight and remembers how to dance.

YEAR: 2025

MATERIAL: Marble

SIZE MEDUIM: 40 cm height x 25 cm width x 21 cm depth

EDITION: 12 and 1 AP