Ask any craftsman or artist why they create the things they do and you’re likely to get a wide variety of responses.
Some do it to express themselves or for the sense of accomplishment that comes from a good day’s work. Some like to be able to point to their work out and say, ‘I built that with my own hands.’

In the modern context, many of these creative works are fragile and short-lived, which is perhaps a telling reflection of our reliance on low-quality, disposable products. Paint cracks, pictures fade and most modern buildings are designed to be cheaply and efficiently assembled.
But one local artisan, who has studied his ancient craft for close to 20 years, hopes that his work will live on hundreds of years into the future.
Bristol native John-Philippe Smith is the co-founder of Smith & Barber Sculpture Atelier Inc., a company that specializes in heritage restoration and custom stonework. The company is based in Ottawa, but recently opened a shop on Bristol Mines Road, adjacent to Logs End’s flooring facility.
“We were set up in Ottawa and the place we were at was pretty good but it just wasn’t big enough,” explained Smith, who said they discovered the space and moved in roughly a year ago. “[Logs End owner] Gord [Black]’s shop was just down the road and I got talking to him, and he said, ‘There’s lots of room up here.’”
The location is well-lit and spacious, with a thin layer of stone dust coating everything in sight. A massive machine known as a bridge saw sits near the door, with a diamond-tipped blade the size of a small coffee table.
Smith said that his interest in sculpting and art developed when he was younger and continued in high school.
“The first bit of sculpture I did was when I was a kid at home, playing around with some wood carving,” he said. “I guess I did a bit of clay work in high school, in art class with Mrs. Holmes, who was my teacher. That was really fun.”
Though he loved working with his hands and was interested in the trades, he said he felt some pressure to attend university and ended up studying physical geography at the University of Ottawa. Upon graduation, he worked for Canadian Pacific Hotels and Fairmont, who own the famous Chateau Laurier.
“I ended up in sales in an office tower in downtown Toronto and I hated it,” he said. “I really wanted to do something else, something with my hands. So I started looking at trades again.”
In the early 2000s he enrolled in the Heritage and Traditional Stone Mason course at Algonquin College’s campus in Perth, Ont. The course covers a wide variety of skills and specializations like restoration work and stone cutting.
“I took the program and as I started playing with the material, I thought, ‘This is a lot like what I was doing back in high school,’” he said. “When I graduated I focused on stone cutting which involves doing moulding and that leads to ornamentation and more sculpture and figurative work later on.”
Smith is a firm believer in the adage, popularized by journalist and author Malcom Gladwell, that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to master any given subject. He moved to Europe in order to study the art of carving stone under the best in the business.
“England, France, Germany, they still have their guilds, so their tied into tradition all the way back to medieval times, which is pretty special,” he explained.
“There are some examples of stone cutting in Europe that are just mind-boggling to look at,” he continued. “Most people would just walk past and say, ‘Oh that’s beautiful,’ but if you sit down and try to figure out how they did that, it’s really crazy.”
He formed Smith & Barber in 2012 with his colleague Danny Barber, who grew up in the stone business and did his training in England. Their business takes a hand-crafted approach to shaping stone and Smith explained that they often use traditional tools like a hammer and chisel, supplemented with modern equipment like the bridge saw.
“We weren’t thinking, ‘Let’s go make a lot of money,’ we were thinking, ‘Let’s do some cool work,’” Smith said, explaining that they aim to maintain the integrity of their ancient craft. “That’s what we’re doing. We’re going to stay true to the traditional means and methods.”
The pair and their employees have worked on a wide variety of high-profile projects, including the restoration of Parliament Hill’s West Block, the Canadian Museum of Nature and the renovations at St. Alphonsus Church in Chapeau.
Recently though, they stepped out of their nor
mal restoration work to create a piece of public art

for the Municipality of Pontiac, which was unveiled over the weekend.
Entitled “Crossroads” the piece is an obelisk with relief carvings on all four sides depicting the history and culture of the region, including its Indigenous inhabitants and natural resources. Smith said that they focus on restoration and rarely get to do public art, so it was a welcome change of pace.
“As an architectural stone carver, you kind of become experts in replicating people’s work, especially stuff that was done a long time ago, so your artistic input is minimal,” he said. “When you do something that’s your own, you finally get to put those skills to work on something that you want to create.”
Smith said he sees the recent trend towards robotics and automation as a possible sign of the trade’s decline, but judging by the recent trend towards artisanal products like craft beer and wine, his traditional methods could still find a market.
“There will always be value for something that is created by hand,” he said