The Grace of a Well-Worked Statue

The greatest sculptor who ever lived began where Michelangelo left off.  He made statues that changed their meaning a hundred times as you walked around it.  He made great, towering works that shifted their content as you walked towards them–the work was not just one sculpture of genius but several, depending on your angle.  He made outdoor pieces whose meaning and beauty shifted with the sun.

That was the first phase of his work.

In the second phase he sculpted sand on a beach.  People with undiagnosed medical problems and their physicians would come visit him.  He would model them in sand.  His statues were so real and so tied to the inner truth of the person being portrayed that the physician and the patient would come to know what the illness was merely by contemplating the statute.  A few of these statues, preserved in glass, became fixtures at medical schools everywhere.

Those who were mentally ill came also.  He made them sand sculptures of themselves on the beach, of who they were inside and out.  He was such a great artist that the first washes of the incoming tide would drain away part of the statue, the part that represented their turmoil and suffering, and in what was left the victim would see himself or herself as they could be and would be, and the victim would go away cured.

That was the second phase of his work.

In his third phase he opened an art school.  If the student’s concept needed refining, he would help refine.  If the student’s chiseling needed help, he would patiently assist in guiding the chisel, then teach the student how to do better.

One day two new students were debating on the doorstep.  “All your effort is an insult to him,” said the one.  “The master doesn’t need your help to make a beautiful sculpture.”  “Nonsense,” said the other.  “On the contrary.  You don’t need help at all if you try hard enough.  Getting help is for quitters.”

These two students had peculiar names.  The first student was called Cheap Grace.  The second student was called Dead Works.