Marble statues

Were I an artist, in the traditional sense, I would be a sculptor. My tools would be the hammer and the chisel. Progress is slow over the face of a marble slab, but every stroke is deliberate. The chisel is pointed at a particular angle in a particular spot, the hammer carried forward just so. Steps are tiny and incremental. The statue is nothing without the thousand strikes preceding it. Give my hammer away to a thousand hands, my chisel to a thousand more, and what becomes of my statue? I can no longer call it my own. Its surface is unfamiliar to my eyes, texture where my mind had never anticipated, features of a stranger’s visage. In bartering with time I lost the fulfillment of self-expression. The statue that was once a mirror now wears a pallor no different than its peers. Perhaps I’m mistaken to search the product of my effort for traces of myself. The real answer is no further than the hammer and chisel resting in my hands. A chisel whose wooden handle bears grooves to match…