Chris Pellettieri
Chris Pellettieri, an independent stone carver hailing from Morningside Heights in New York City, specializes in carving ornamental pieces, freehand sculptures, and inscriptions. He pours the rest of his time into educating the next generation of artisans at Pellettieri Stone Carvers’ Academy, which provides him with an outlet to share his passion for the craft and to help revitalize the knowledge he fears is endangered.
Pellettieri’s career path was largely informed by his time as a student and apprentice at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. While initially impartial to the idea of stonework when he was a student at the Cathedral School, years of a sedentary classroom education led him to reevaluate. His very first experience as an apprentice in the cathedral’s stone yard affirmed his emerging enthusiasm. “As soon as I tried stone carving, it proved to be like a godsend,” he says.
With the invaluable support of highly skilled stone workers trained in Europe, he made rapid progress in two short years. Pellettieri applauds the cathedral not only for offering a paid apprenticeship program but also for creating a space where the diffusion of knowledge among carvers and masons of all skill levels was commonplace.
“People who knew a lot were getting together with people who knew nothing and sharing openly. That just seemed revolutionary.”
Inspired by the training program, he established Pellettieri Stone Carvers’ Academy, a setting where sharing stone-carving skills and knowledge is fundamental. The academy is close to his heart because he has the chance to exercise one of his favorite activities: teaching. He loves to watch people enter a “flow” state of consciousness—a form of mindfulness and complete focus that he considers the antithesis of the “technological bombardment” that our society is collectively experiencing. “It’s a great state of mind. It calms you,” he says.
As one who “came alive” through his training, Pellettieri still favors the traditional techniques and materials that he learned early on. He prefers working by hand with mallets and chisels—tools that have been around for thousands of years. When effective and suitable for a project, he employs modern drills and pneumatic tools, such as his handy air hammer for speed. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine’s primary medium is limestone—one of the softer stones and Pellettieri’s favorite. He appreciates how tool marks elevate a limestone piece, giving it texture, shadow, and depth. Pellettieri also occasionally works in granite, marble, or sandstone, and for cemetery monuments he tends to use slate, given its legibility for even the smallest of inscriptions.
Pellettieri is energized by experimentation and will create with the simple intent of personal enjoyment and self-expression. He fondly recalls his collection of limestone “green people,” visages emerging from leafy surrounds, as he tried his hand at an age-old ornamental tradition. In his quest for connection and meaning, he finds cemetery monuments to be the most rewarding because they are “packed with emotion.” In 2025, he received the prestigious John Russell Pope Award for Artisanship from the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art for his sculptural carving on the façade of St. Rita’s Catholic Church in Alexandria, Virginia.
Through his academy, Pellettieri has forged a partnership with the Stephen T. Mather Building Arts and Craftsmanship High School in New York City and the National Park Service to give weekly carving workshops for high school students on Governors Island, and a partnership with the New York City Department of Education to run a summer camp teaching the stone carving tradition to the city’s teens. He has great hope that the next generation will keep the centuries-old craft alive and well.
