The following is from Chris Pellettieri, Stone Carver in New York City. He is one of many stone carvers trained at St. John the Divine Cathedral on Manhattan near Columbia University. The apprenticeship program at St. John the Divine closed in 1991.

A friend once summed up the reason for his preference for machine tools over hand tools by saying, "Why walk when you can drive?". I find this to be a perfect analogy because if you take it literally, there are many reasons why I would rather walk than drive. If I am going through a beautiful place, it would probably be nicer to walk. If I was searching for something, and had to pay close attention, it would be better to walk. If I was trying to do something healthy for my body, it would be better to walk. I choose to do the majority of my stonecarving work with hand tools not because I feel I have anything to prove (although I may have felt that way years ago), but rather for the same reasons I often choose to walk: it is often a more pleasant way to work, it is healthier, it is more fun, and in most cases, the work comes out looking better. However, in many instances I do choose to use power tools because there are some jobs they can do much better than hand tools. Other times, I need to work quickly so I use the fastest techniques, often involving power tools. One thing I hope I will never want to do is to use machines that shape stone without any human guidance, such as robotic computer-controlled saws and routers that you can set up and walk away from while they do the work for you. I'm very thankful for the training I got at the Cathedral where hand tool skills were considered essential. I appreciate the fact that the values and techniques I was taught were in total opposition to the dominant trend in the modern stone industry if not in all areas of the modern world.