Dec 14th, 2016: Carving
 

Looks like a vegetable.

http://cellar.org/2016/stone1.jpg

Looks like a wool WW II WD blanket.

http://cellar.org/2016/stone2.jpg

Nope, they're all carved in stone... or out of stones. ;)

http://cellar.org/2016/stone.jpg

link

The second one and the one on the left in the bottom pair both look like granite, which is INCREDIBLY difficult to carve like this as it is extremely hard. Among the most difficult stones to carve is jade, whether jadeite or nephrite, which is both hard and extremely durable. I wouldn't be surprised if the "veggie" at the top is jade. Kudos to the carver regardless--this is an excellent example of the difference between a 'simple' thing (just a few cloth-like folds) and an 'easy' thing!

The bottom ones appear to be discolored where they were worked. I wonder if that was intentional, or if the artist was trying to get the color to match and just had trouble.

The carving to make them have natural looking surfaces is very very impressive to me. In my experience, rock turns white when you do anything to it. Trying to grind/polish down the surface to get that natural weathered look takes very fine abrasives and lots of time. We had a little rock tumbler running in our basement for weeks and it barely touched the rocks my kids put in there.