After my opening at the Soprafina Gallery in Boston several years ago, friends invited me to dinner with their friends—an oncologist and his wife. Over the meal he told me about his research. He had access to mountains of data collected from patients over many years, and he and his team were struggling to mine the information for patterns that might predict cancer.

Nick isn’t just any stone carver—he’s a third-generation master, leading The John Stevens Shop in Newport, Rhode Island. When you peel back the layers, though, what strikes me most isn’t his lineage—it’s his heart. He learned the trade from his father*, soaking up calligraphy and type design in Basel, then returned to reinvent what hand-lettered stone could be.