Rocky Road From Medic To Sculptor

Except for the day Rick Thompson sheared off the fingertips on his left hand, the shale in his basement workshop has calmed and comforted him.

The dry, layered rock gave him a new life after 19 years of misery.

He sculpts shale native to Idaho into wildlife silhouettes that are beginning to attract buyers. He’s poorer than he’s ever been, but happier and filled with the joy of accomplishment for the first time in his life.

“I’m not making big money, but I know what’s important now,” says Rick, who’s 39. “I have the perfect life.”

Moose, elk, fish and bears graze in harmony on the entry wall of Rick’s Clark Fork home. Mica deposits add gold highlights to his grizzlies. Gray bass swim perpetually open-mouthed.

The placid menagerie represents an end to discontent that was ruining Rick’s life.

“I was trapped in my job because of the money,” he says. “I had bills, child support. I wanted people to know how well I was doing by what I had.”

Rick grew up in Sandpoint, the middle child of nine. Hand-me-downs were plentiful in his home, but new clothes required work. His parents owned the Sandpoint Daily Bee. Rick took a job as a delivery boy in the second grade and kept working through high school.

He set his sights on medical school, but couldn’t raise the money. Instead, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy’s medic program.

The Navy taught him to treat war-related injuries and what to do in emergencies. The world was at relative peace in the late 1970s, so Rick was assigned to war games in Okinawa, the Philippines and Korea.

Athlete’s foot, bee stings and broken bones took most of his time until a helicopter crashed during a war exercise. Nine of 39 on board survived.

Most of the dead were Rick’s friends. He picked up bodies, bagged them, and died a little with each. He was 19.

The Navy moved him into medical records for a year, then back into active emergency medicine. He suffered so much with his patients that doctors worried he’d break down. They assigned him to study aviator behavior until his discharge.

With medicine out of his future, Rick had no idea what do to after the Navy. He took a job as pressman at the Bee and married. Shortly after his son was born, Rick was offered a management position he didn’t want.

“I wanted a job I could do on my own and I didn’t want to worry about anyone else,” he says.

But the job meant more money. He took it and then accepted another move two years later into advertising sales.

The higher salary didn’t stop his mood from darkening. Migraine headaches began. He stopped talking to his wife. He water-skied from April to October for stress relief. It wasn’t enough.

Despair led to divorce, but Rick kept his job to pay child support. He enjoyed helping friends remodel their homes, but had no time to pursue training. By the time he married again in 1991, he was a miserable man blind to the cause of his distress.

Rock had caught his attention years earlier on a chimney remodeling job. He liked its texture and permanence.

“It was like a jigsaw puzzle,” he says, enamored enough with the grout lines on his own chimney to pause for a moment of silent appreciation. “I’d get that look-what-I-did feeling when the pieces fit.”

Masonry grew into a hobby, but he had little time for it. His wife, Marcie, noticed his attraction to rock. She urged him to quit his advertising job. He was scared.

Rick’s work on a stone entry for Marcie’s parents two years ago finally convinced him he had a future in shale. He’d cut rock to fit gaps before, but this time he cut a shale slab in the shape of Idaho.

His Clark Fork neighbors raved at his work, which gave Rick the courage to quit his sales job. He and Marcie started a home remodeling business. In his spare time, Rick practiced cutting shale into animal shapes on his brick and tile saw.

Savings saw the Thompsons through the first tight months of their new venture. Then Rick sheared off his fingertips and couldn’t work for four months.

“I learned how to get along without a lot of stuff and it was all right,” he says. “My values changed tremendously.”

He never considered returning to ad sales. Instead, he focused on shale-sculpting. Rough palm-sized trout grew into sleek, foot-long fish. Crude, round bears matured into furry grizzlies. Hundreds of tiny cuts of his saw gave them an illusion of softness.

The chipped cast-offs piled high by his side, but nothing discouraged him. Last spring, he interested galleries in his work, which ranges in price from $55 to $220. Summer shoppers bought about a dozen of Rick’s sculptures, most of those from Priest Lake’s Entree Gallery.

“My wife and I did a happy dance when we heard someone we didn’t know had bought my work,” he says.

Rick’s Rocks, as he’s named his business, have spread to galleries in Boise and Coeur d’Alene. He and Marcie live carefully on her salary. She works behind the lunch counter at a nearby golf course.

“I’m behind on all my bills, but I know my commission check can go toward child support and that’s great,” he says, smiling like someone who’s finally found an answer to a lingering question. “We don’t have big money, but I know what’s important now. I’m doing exactly what I want to do.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: Rick exhibits his work at Priest Lake’s Entree Gallery, Northwest Artisans in Sandpoint, Sandpoint Landscaping & Supply, The Paint Bucket, Cast & Blast in Coeur d’Alene and The Artisan in Boise.