sculptors of our own life

Sculptors of our own life

We all start as girls and boys

Why girl and boy?
Dreams to conquer the world in our own extraordinary way.
Princesses and princes.
Masters of the world and beyond.

Meanwhile, we turn into teenagers.
We face difficulties that look like it is the end of the world and sometimes beyond.
We still dream but the dreams start to look like dreams.
As soon as we wake up they’re gone.

Then we become adults.
We have lost the girly-boyish feeling of freedom, power and magnificence.
Princesses and princes have died.
Masters of the world look like fairy tales and dreams like a utopian story of the silly ones.


Lets us talk of resurrection

I did not use the words girl or boy by chance, probably….
No other word fitted to my post and I understood the reason yesterday.

Only if we accept the death of the girl or boy inside us, only then we can see their resurrection.
We become the boy and girl we want to be, we remember the quality of the princess,
the hunter of the world and we give it the shape we want.
We are artists.

We are artists,
sculptors of our own life

Sculptors of our own life

Do you think is easy to make a sculpture? Of course not.
Trust my word.
It’s not.
It requires so many steps, a carefully organised procedure.

Take a wood sculpture for example….

You take your first walk into the forest. It will take many hours to see this one that will make your heart beat. You even might not find it.
You enjoy the air in your lungs, the sun that is shining or the rain and earth that reveals its smell.

One of these walking days….. you see it. The tree wood.
The dead tree wood lying in and on the ground.
Its shape looks interesting and promising.
You approach and investigate it further.
You decide this is the one for now.
You need to take it off the ground, cut it from its dead roots and carry it back.
A difficult and time-consuming procedure.

Treat it like a baby

You take it home and treat it like a baby.
You clean it, wash it and let it rest. It needs its time to adapt to a new environment.
You must not be precipitant.
Wood is a living being, still.
It breaths, it stretches and it cracks.

The time of adaptation has passed. Different for each type of wood.
Every wood has its own character.

Now you put it there, in front of you and stare at it, adore it, discuss with it, understand it.
How can I make the best of you?
How can I use all that you are giving me, all that you offer?


Patience is a vital virtue

You imagine it, you dream of it. You close your eyes and see the artwork, finished, astonishing and glorious.

The time to put it on your working space has finally arrived.
You start to give it shape. The shape you imagined and dreamt of. The shape the wood itself revealed to you.
You must not constrain it, you have to adapt to what it offers.


A challenge, an anxiety to respect its limits

As you proceed the wood is changing. The way you wanted, the way the wood asked you to.
You never know though what there is beneath.
There may be crackings of the past, a trauma from an outside enemy, a colour change due to fungus…
So now what?

You keep on shaping based on these new data that revealed.
Does that look like an easy job? No.
Does this look like an exciting and adventurous trip? I believe it is.


A work of art

And finally, someday you manage to make the best of this dead, lonely wood and
turn it into a work of art.
You wax it, you place it opposite of you and check your work.

If I hadn’t cut this branch at first if it didn’t crack…

But there it is the best of what you could, that day.
A piece of art ready to inspire and amaze those around you!