Great artists are unmistakable. To achieve artistic greatness requires a certain drive and dedication that no amount of skill can replace. By now, I’ve seen it often enough to know within moments whether someone possesses it. Whether one day I might see their work in a museum or hear their names spoken with admiration in these exclusive circles of ours; whether collectors will battle each other in auction houses for the privilege of possessing their work; whether critics will argue over their influence in the works of those to come. Greatness is impossible to disguise.

But there is a separate kind of greatness in art, which somehow never manifests in fame or even recognition. You will never see their art in a museum. You will never recognize their names. Collectors do not seek them out. Critics do not think to mention them amongst themselves. At best, you might find their work in a small gallery in a smaller town, or in some obscure auction house selling the remains of some loved one’s estate. Chance might take them close to a spotlight if some collector disregards their taste for prestige and purchases the work on a whim. But even then, fame does not find them. The system we have built fails to give their greatness the audience it deserves.

In retrospect, it is obvious why. Renowned great artists are dedicated, and this dedication manifests itself as prolificity. Iteration, transformation, exploration. They leave behind a number of great works which are disseminated, analyzed, and cherished. These great artists have dedicated a lifetime to their work. But there are others who have dedicated their lives.

My own lifetime in the world of art has put me in a position to see many talented young artists pass through in pursuit of greatness. In such a position, it is my responsibility to distinguish greatness and propel it forward through my connections and experience.

But I do, on rare occasion, recognize greatness, as it follows this secret, hidden path. And, in vain, these cursed souls I urge to follow any other.

Early in my career, I scrounged an income by working part time as an instructor for a mentor of mine. Gretta was a talented painter, but taught all varieties of media, her skill as an instructor more key than any artistic specialty. In a month of particular expenditure, I found myself assisting Gretta’s intermediate sculpting class.

There was much assistance to be given: this was the first time many of the students had worked with something other than clay, and even soapstone was not so easily shaped. There were plenty of children to console about irreparable mistakes, adults to cajole into making their first irreversible cuts. All in all, entertaining if tedious.

We made it through the hour. The soapstone shapes were shunted off into a corner of the crowded classroom. As Gretta handled the last of the students I inspected the aggregate of them, trying to guess which of whose creators we would be seeing again and which would never return.

One last student came by to drop off her work. Not one that I had seen in any of Gretta’s other classes, nor had she been one of the many students clamoring for my attention earlier.

She held her piece in front of her with two hands, almost as if she were hiding it. But not quite.

“How did it go?” I asked.

She shrugged. “It didn’t turn out how I wanted it to.”

“Well, it looks like that was the case for most of the class. Mistakes are inevitable. It’s just a matter of learning how to adapt to them.”

She frowned, still holding her fist full of soapstone in front of her.

“At the beginning of class, Ms. Gretta said that sculpting is finding the shape within the stone, then making it free. But if you make a mistake, then you’re not making the stone’s shape anymore. You’re making your mistakes’.”

She looked awfully young---she was at an age where her peers went to great pains to make themselves look older, and her lack of participation only highlighted her youth. Her appearance was unremarkable, but even frustrated and exhausted as she was, her eyes had a determination that could not be diminished.

“Well, maybe the stone meant for you to make those mistakes,” I said at last.

She cracked the barest of smiles, not unlike unearthing a sliver of sculpture from a block of stone.

“Maybe. But I think the stone probably wouldn’t have asked someone like Ms. Gretta to make so many.”

I was smiling too. “Well, there’s nothing for it--you’ll just have to keep practicing. Why don’t you drop off what you’ve got so far? Next class you’ll be polishing and finishing them.”

She nodded and carefully deposited her work onto the bench. As she let go, the soft stone made an extended clatter, which confused me at first. But then she pulled her hands away and smiled sheepishly.

She had broken it into smaller chunks, the smallest barely more than a cubic inch. Each, it seemed, was the careful excision of some mistake in an attempt to return to an unsullied block.

She had left before I could comment on her unusual approach. I looked back down to her scatter of stone. I picked one up and saw that at least she had tried to work a little more with the mistake she had removed.

“That’s Elise’s, isn’t it?” said Gretta. “She’s odd, isn’t she? But probably the most talented person in this class. Including me, at least when it comes to this 3d stuff.”

I was still rummaging around her little blocks of stone, inspecting each in turn.

“How old is she?” I asked idly.

“Fourteen. Just started high school. I thought I’d try to convince her parents to send her to a school with a good program, give her a head start for college. There’s only so much I can do, after all. I can teach her the craft, but she needs a real mentor to teach her the art.”

“That good, huh?”

“And she’s dedicated, too. Apparently spends all her allowance here.”

“Well, at least passionate,” I said. “Persistence is something else.”

Gretta grinned. “I’m sure she has that too.”

She grabbed one of Elise’s sculpturettes and held it out for me to inspect.

Its shape was unmistakable. A human ear, impossibly delicate for such soft and low quality soapstone. She had carved the shell of the ear around the stone’s sole patch of spidery veins, just where the skin might be thin enough to show the vessels beneath.

I looked at the other fragments of her block with new eyes, seeing now the rough shape of the ear, or where trying to carve some unusual curve had split the stone. She must have attempted that single ear four or five times on increasingly smaller pieces of stone, until at last perfecting it on a sliver of stone the size of a large coin.

“She’d probably have kept going if she could,” said Gretta. “But unlike most perfectionists she does accept there are limits to what she can actually achieve.”

“For now,” I said.

Gretta nodded her agreement and replaced the ear amongst its predecessors.

“For now.”

That was the last I saw of Elise for several years, which was not surprising. I only spent a few months in Gretta’s classroom. My commissions began to pick up and the credibility that is so highly valued in our small world increased with them. Just as I began to be able to support myself off art alone, I received an offer to be an artist in residence for a local school. I accepted, of course.

I was attending the final show of some of my friends in the student body when I saw her again. It was a bit of an awkward dance--our eyes met, but she seemed uncertain whether she recognized me. And while I remembered her quite well, she was much changed.

“Were you one of Gretta Lamberg’s students, maybe four years ago?” I ventured.

Recognition found her at last. “I was. You taught a few classes, didn’t you? My name’s Elise Smith.”

“Avery Lehrer,” I said. “What are you studying?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Sculpture,” she said.

“Of course,” I replied. “Are you showing your work here today?”

She nodded. “It’s over there, in the back.”

She turned towards the back of the room, quickly becoming swallowed into the crowded makeshift gallery. I paused a moment before following her.

It was not just age that had changed her since I’d seen her last. Then, she had been mostly unremarkable in appearance, same-ish in the way children do. She was remarkable now. But not beautiful. No, more the opposite. Something was changing beneath her skin, as if some thought occupied her mind with such frequency that it had begun to push through to shape the face around it.

She was not beautiful, but all the same, I found it impossible to look away.

First year students were allowed little more than a desk’s worth of space for their work. For sculpture students, this was probably just one piece, maybe two at best. I was a little amused to see Elise’s elections were both smaller and more numerous than her peers. I imagined that I could see echoes of that soapstone ear in the four pieces she had chosen: an ankle frozen in tension carved from knotted wood, a cast of an indistinct silhouette entwined around itself. She had since branched out from the human form as well: from found materials a bristling array of fangs, a texture of stone that blended seamlessly from rough fur to wrinkled skin, like one might find on the corners of a smiling mouth.

Each piece was simply titled “Study” followed by a number. Unlike her peers, she had elected not to provide some commentary about the work, and instead had provided a summary of the assignment they had been created for.

It attracted little attention, though I caught murmurs of approval from those who walked past. Others might have seized the opportunity to engage the commenters but Elise was unconcerned, almost bored.

“How have classes been?” I asked.

“Good,” she said. “They keep me busy. More than I’d like.”

“There’s something else you’d rather work on?” I guessed.

She nodded. “Though I do see the use of them. Things like the maw--” she gestured to the spikes of glass teeth “--I have to remind myself that the sculpture makes me as much as I make the sculpture, so it’s useful even if I’m just going to throw it out later. Now that I think of it--you told me that, didn’t you?”

“I might have said something to that effect,” I said, dubiously. “Are you really going to throw it out?”

“I don’t exactly have the space to keep it,” she said.

“Why not sell it?”

Elise looked over to her classmates, speaking with much animation to the visitors of their mini exhibition--potential buyers, connections, patrons.

“They’re deluding themselves,” she said. “No one’s interested in buying assignments from a first year student at a mediocre art school.”

“But you won’t be a student forever,” I replied. “And I think you can expect more than mediocrity, unlike some people.” I tried not to look too meaningfully towards her neighbor’s work.

“Well, thank you. I suppose that’s kind of you to say. But I have my own expectations of myself, and they have little to do with whether or not someone thinks it’s a good investment to buy my first year art projects.”

“Very true,” I said. “Something that’s easy to forget, I imagine. You and I should stay in touch. I’m here for a while, as artist in residence--and yourself?”

“My program has another three years. I expect I’ll stay for most of it.”

“I’ll make sure to make some time soon, then. Before you move on to bigger and better things.”

She smiled, a little uncomfortably. “I was surprised to see you again, but pleased. Do you see Ms. Gretta much any more?”

“We grab lunch every so often.”

“I hadn’t thought about her in ages. Can you give her my thanks, and my apologies? I always meant to visit.”

“I can. I’ll see you soon, Elise.”

“I heard you were awarded the Gallagher’s Award. Congratulations.”

“That was last year,” Elise said evenly, staring out over the city. Our park of choice overlooked the city’s modest mainstreet, fairly busy on a weekend morning. Around Elise the bustle of the city was muted, further away than it actually was.

“Well, I hadn’t seen you since then. You’re awfully hard to get a hold of.”

“You know where to find me.”

“I don’t like to interrupt while you’re at the studio.”

“Hm. Well, I appreciate it. I wish others would be as considerate.”

“You mean Dr. Delaney? You should show some consideration in return. He only means well---those dinners and shows are important for your future.”

“My future?” she said.

“Your future as an artist. You’re right, you know. No one’s interested in the art of a first year student. You’re getting to the point where talent matters less and less---people want to know where you’re headed as an artist. Titling every work Study X or Experiment Y tells them nothing about your artistic vision, and where it will take your career.”

Bleary eyed, Elise blinked, and then let out a snort of laughter.

“What?” I asked. “Did I say something?”

“No. Yes. It just never occurred to me to make a career out of this.”

“Really?” I was flabbergasted. “Then why---what are you doing here? What’s the point?”

Elise leant over the railing. “There’s something important I have to make---something important I have to say. And this is the only way I can say it. As I am now, it won’t be expressed the way it needs to be. But I don’t mind if it takes me years, hundreds of attempts, thousands of dollars. One day I’ll have it. And that’s all that matters.”

It was like the moment with the ear, all those years ago. The mundane titles, the unfinished works she was becoming notorious for. Her lack of interest in the social ladder that would foster her as she progressed--not even considering a career!

What was my reaction then? I suppose I must have thought her tragically naive. But I was also impressed. Any other young artist I might have dismissed the idea as outlandish or idiotically romantic. But from Elise, I could believe it.

“So, then, this magnum opus of yours, how long have you been working on it?”

“Since before I met you. Before I met Gretta even.”

“And every study, every exercise and assignment, was all in service of it?”

“It was a stretch for some of them. But as best I could, yes.”

I began to filter through my memory of every piece she had made. Sculptures, sketches, even essays. Putting them together was difficult, but suggested something strange, grotesque, exhilarating.

“Then everything---it’s all been pieces of it. How does it all fit together? How close are you to having the whole thing?”

Elise’s eyes lit up. “Nothing’s set in stone, not yet. But everyday it becomes clearer, and I become more capable of it. But, I have sketches, notes. I, uh, keep them in my room---I don’t want the others to see them. But, I could show you, if you like.”

I accepted her offer. The sketches were as strange and fascinating as I dreamed it could have been, as beautiful and awesome as its creator herself.

What was my impression of the sketches? They were all very rough, her ideas had only begun to coalesce, in how to express the inexpressible. But they were fantastical, pulled and pried at the imagination in ways that I had never considered. In ways so strange and tantalizing that they begged to be made real, if it were even possible. Her work strained the boundaries of what stone could be persuaded to do, demanded things of its artist that would tax both body and mind. Elise’s impatience was understandable now, her exhaustion unavoidable. There was much work to be done, and I was honored that she found time away from it to share with me.

Elise left her program within the year. Only somewhat coincidentally my artist in residence program was completed as well, and I accepted a teaching post across the country. But there were several months remaining before I needed to begin my work, so I spent them on my own work and catching up with neglected friends and connections. Elise included.

It was a long drive up to the tiny town she had chosen to make her new home. A longer journey than I would have even entertained for anyone else---but I had a feeling that this might be the last opportunity to see her for a long while.

I arrived early evening. The town could barely be called such: a single street, woven between tall cliff faces of stone, glowing blue in the evening light. Small houses, some carefully maintained, others long since fallen into disrepair, faded gradually into a handful of quaint storefronts and restaurants. I found the address Elise had given me and parked outside. From where I stood I could see the end of the town, the hills and forests beyond.

A door opened across the street, the only movement in the entire town. In the half dark I could make out a silhouette.

“Elise! It’s good to see you again.”

Elise stepped out from the shadow of her doorway.

She had changed yet again. There was no way to look at her and see the same girl I had met ten years before. Even the young woman I had met again at University was difficult to find within this new face. The evolving thing that I had caught a glimpse of all those years ago had taken over, reshaped the face that housed it. Hollowed it out and began to fill it with something new.

Yet, she was somehow still just as entrancing as when I had seen her last.

“I’m a little in disbelief, that you’re really here. That you came all this way,” she said as she helped me gather my belongings from the car. I noticed that she struggled with them, more than I would have expected.

“It’s always nice to have a change of scenery,” I said. “It’s beautiful here, though very difficult to get to.”

“The two aren’t unrelated,” she said, with a hint of a sigh.

Elise’s entryway was dark, though I could see warm yellow lights flicker in an adjacent room---her studio, no doubt.

She felt along the walls for the lights to the hallways, kitchen, living room. Most surfaces I saw were covered in an appreciable amount of dust. As spacious as her home was, she seemed to have little use for it.

Elise rummaged around in her kitchen with some annoyance.

“I meant to have something made for you as you arrived, but I lost track of time... It happens more often than not these days.”

Elise’s pantry was freshly stocked. Flustered, she shuffled through its contents, muttering as she attempted to recall the recipes she had intended them for.

“Would you like some assistance?” I offered.

“I don’t usually---on my own I don’t really bother, but---”

“I’ll help you out,” I said smoothly.

Elise accepted my direction with palpable relief. Together we made a simple meal of roasted fish and vegetables. I was grateful for the simple activity to break the ice between us.

Elise served first me, then herself. She sat down across from me, and ate as I did.

She bit into it slowly, frowning.

“Does it taste okay?” I asked. I was barely more of a cook than her.

“It tastes...good. Better than anything I’ve had in a long time.”

She ate with relish then. Our meal passed with few words, both of us too hungry for talk. I from my day of driving, and she apparently from something else.

At last, then, when the food was gone, conversation could not be put off any longer. Elise cleaned the plates and dusted off the ancient couches she had clearly inherited from the home’s previous owner.

“How have you been Elise, since I saw you last?”

“Fine,” she said. “Leaving the program was the right choice. It was becoming hard to make time for my commitments to my classes. There are much fewer distractions here.”

“Not much at all.”

Elise smiled. “No. But there are quarries. Artist grade marble. And it’s significantly cheaper if you don’t have to pay for it to be transported across the country. They’re just over the hill. I can show you in the morning, if you’d like.”

“Sure,” I replied. “Do you visit them often?”

Elise shrugged. “Normally no. There’s a stoneyard in town. I can see the pieces there.”

“Do you have many friends in town?”

“They’ve come to expect me in the shops.”

There was little more to be said on that matter. The real question, the one I had come all this way to ask, was all that was left.

“Elise, how is your work going? Are you still making progress?”

She nodded. “It’s slow, but as steady as always.” Her hands flitted along the hem of her shirt. “It’s all becoming much more concrete now. These are the tools that I’ll use, the stone I’ll carve it from---”

“You’re close then? Will you let me see? Your studio’s in the back, isn’t it---”

I surprised myself with my own eagerness. I was on my feet before I could even realize it. I might have run towards the back, towards the warm light still shining there, if Elise’s expression of terror had not stopped me.

“Wait, I’ve---” she shook. “I’ve already started---tried to start, several times. They’re still in there, but I don’t want anyone to see it, not yet. I...don’t know if I want anyone to see it at all.”

The artistic force and the body that contained it were at war then. It was easy for me to forget that she was not just her artistic ambitions, but it was even easier for Elise herself. Easier not to remember she was only just barely an adult, living alone for the first time, far from everything she had ever known. Her dedication fortified her against it, but at the same time, it was what had brought her here in the first place.

She held her face over her hands. “I’m beginning to wonder how I'll know whether it will be time---if it will ever---”

I grabbed her shoulder and sat down beside her on the dust-ridden couch.

“It’s a marathon, Elise. Not a sprint. You need to look after yourself. Clean this place up, get to know your neighbors. Exercise, feed yourself properly. Find a life for yourself outside your art.”

Elise shook her head. “My life is my art.”

The petulance of that statement cracked a smile in Elise that staved off the tears.

“If your life is your art then take good care of it. Stone is hard work, you can’t do it on an empty stomach.”

“You’re right, of course,” she said, rubbing her eyes with her sleeves, though I had not seen any tears. “I’ll clear out my studio tomorrow morning, move the attempts out so I can show you the studies at least.”

“Why not move the studies out here instead? I think your main room was meant to be a storefront anyways.”

She frowned. “You mean, to sell them?”

“If there are any you can part with.”

“There are plenty, but I’d rather not spend the time.”

“Price them low enough and they’ll sell themselves. What would you do with them otherwise?”

“Not much,” she admitted.

“Something is better than nothing. It will also build goodwill with your neighbors. I can help you get set up, while I’m here.”

She seemed not to know how to respond to my generosity.

“I’m exhausted,” she said at last. “Let’s discuss this more in the morning, perhaps on our walk to the quarry. You can take my room, down the hall.”

“What about you?”

“I’ve been sleeping in my studio lately.”

I did indeed help Elise set up a small shop. There were maybe twenty or thirty pieces she judged acceptable for the townspeople to peruse or purchase, all of them artistically intriguing in their own right, but all obviously and tantalizingly unfinished.

We sold them more quickly than expected. The townsfolk were curious about the newcomer, and Elise’s art was extremely generously priced. I commented that she would be out within the month at this rate. She replied she had more pieces, but those could not be shown, much less sold. Even to me.

Did I ever see her first attempts at the final work? I will be honest, if there had been an opportunity, I would have taken it. But there were none. Perhaps knowing this, Elise and I spent nearly every moment of those few days together. She continued to spend nights in her studio, preventing me from stealing a glance while she slept.

But she did show me new sketches, new studies and practices, and as before they were magnetic, and spoke powerfully of the work that was to come.

Again, I did not see Elise for several years. My own career took off, then plateaued, but not in a way that was undesirable to me. My place within the community solidified itself in a position of mentorship and also recognition of rising talent. A stable career allowed me to stabilize other aspects of my life---I bought a house, started a family. I thought rarely of Elise, but when I did, I wondered about the differences between the nature of her happiness and mine, and whether one could ever come to appreciate that of the other.

It was a rare night alone. My partner had taken our son for a weekend trip while I was unexpectedly detained with work. Our house was quiet and oddly cold, and I was listless.

The phone rang. I did not recognize the number.

Normally I would not have answered, but some compulsion bade me to. Another opposing one bade me not. As I hovered in indecision over the phone, the answering machine made it for me.

“Avery, this is Elise.

“It’s...almost done. It happened so much more quickly than I thought. So many failed attempts, so much struggle, but...it’s all fallen away. Within the month, Avery, it will be complete.

“I... I’m not sure that I want it to be.”

The message ended. I immediately tried to call her back. She did not answer. The same when I called the next morning, and the next.

Such was the state of my life that the month Elise had promised had come and gone and I still had not made time to go see her. Between obligations to my students and my family I had only just begun to find time to seek her out when news of her reached me first.

The conversation occurred at the end of year student show---an important time to seek out connections, patronage, as talented young artists sought ways to transition from these shallower shores. Conversation should have been dominated by discussion of the merits of students’ work. Instead, in a secretive whisper, spreading through the crowds like wildfire---

“---Everyone I know from the state has gone to see it already. Further south my old professor says they’re arranging transportation for the whole faculty---”

“---she’s refused all offers to have it shown at any gallery---refuses even to move it from that tiny town of hers. A four hour drive from the nearest airport, but still people are going in droves---”

“---can’t get a straight explanation from them. But they say it’s the most remarkable work of the decade, maybe the century! We’ll have to see for ourselves---”

“It smells of a scam, or a hoax. But old Sakwood was smitten, he wouldn’t have fallen for that kind of trick---”

“---a nobody. At least, previously. Won a few awards, dropped out of Barton’s... Say, didn’t Professor Lehrer use to work there?”

“Say, Avery, you wouldn’t happen to recognize the name Elise Smith?”

“I do,” I said coolly. “Our time at Barton’s overlapped. She was well known as a talented student. I’m not surprised to hear of her success.”

The murmurs exploded into unabashed interest then. I was bombarded with questions---what was her art like? What motivated her? What kind of person was she? Could I convince her to come as a speaker?

I answered all questions dimly, without detail. Both out of respect for Elise and her reclusive nature, but also because there was no other answer I could provide. Not until I went to see the sculpture for myself.

I have never since experienced anything like it. There is a certain quiet often found in art museums and galleries, a certain sobriety born of respect both for the art and the appreciation of it. What occurred in Elise’s gallery went far beyond it. The gallery, packed as it was, was still, with a silence that bordered on reverence.

Could I describe it? Only in terms of my reaction to it. Any other attempt would fall short. To say it was beautiful would be untrue. To say it was hideous untrue as well. Graceful, brutal; intricate, violent. Imposing, intimate. Emotional, yet lifeless as stone. One could exhaust the entirety of human language trying to describe it and not yet manage to catch what Elise had made real in stone.

I recognized it as soon as I saw it, not from Elise’s sketches or her studies, but from Elise herself. This was the vision that had shaped her, now made manifest. What had previously lingered beneath the skin, haunted the hollows of her eyes, had now emerged. And it was more than I could ever have imagined.

I wept to see it. I was not the only one. To gaze upon it emptied my heart of all previous loves and despairs and filled it with something else entirely.

At the gallery’s closing, I and the other occupants were dumped in a daze onto the cold streets. Once the shock had faded, the crowds were clamoring to see the artist---where was Elise Smith? Who was she? Could she be met?

The shopkeeper next door, who Elise had apparently hired to see to her gallery in the months prior to the completion of her work, explained that Elise would not be seeing any visitors, and expressed her preference that he not share her location with anyone else. His small town loyalty stood strong against appeals to fame, threats of violence, even bribes. The crowd dismissed itself in dejection, but showed every sign of returning the next day.

I stayed behind. The shopkeeper recognized me from the few days I had spent here years ago, and when I asked, admitted that Elise was still in town. When I asked if I might see her, he frowned and said that her answer might change for me but it seemed unlikely.

I asked if he at least knew if she was alright.

“Hard to say,” he said. “I never knew her to do anything but work on that sculpture of hers.”

“And now it’s done,” I said.

I stayed in that tiny town for several days, hoping that each would be the day I could see her. I was not the only one.

The crowds swelled as word spread. The town became a circus of feuding artistic egos all demanding her attention, making greater and greater offers in an attempt to cajole her to appear. Luckily such theatrics did not extend beyond the streets outside--Elise’s gallery was left in reverent silence. I began to spend more and more of my time there, content to spend hours lost in the mastery of Elise’s creation.

One night, allowed to stay a little later on my own by the shopkeeper, the door to the back of Elise’s studio unlocked with a quiet click. A few moments later, it swung open, silently.

Soft footsteps approached me. The bench I sat on shifted as it took on another’s weight.

“Elise,” I said, unable to look away from the sculpture.

I heard the small sounds of a presence beside me---breathing, rustling cloth. The bench creaked ever so slightly as she shifted beside me.

“It’s done,” she said. “The work of a lifetime, complete in only half that.”

“How does it feel?” I asked, eyes still lost among the sculpture’s surfaces. “To be done, at last?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” she said.

“Are you not happy with it?”

“The sculpture? No, it’s exactly as I dreamed of, and at once, so much more. But to have finished it---I don’t know that I ever thought that far ahead.”

In some ways, neither had I. I always imagined Elise’s work to be finished as she neared her deathbed, to collapse as she completed the final detail, to see her completed work for the first time just as the life left her eyes. Cliche, I know, but how else was a work of such ambition and scope to be completed, if not by the hand of eternity itself?

I realized though, that it was not too late for her to enact such an ending.

“What comes next, Avery?” I heard her say.

The gallery was still and cold. Our voices did little to lift the weight of that silence.

“I suppose you rest on your laurels, for now.” I said. “There are very many people who would assist you with that.”

Outside, we could just barely hear two blustery curators attempt to one-up the other with what they would offer the sculpture’s creator for a chance to show it in their venues. Elise snorted her disdain.

“You know I have no patience for such things.”

“Because it distracted you from your work,” I said. “But now it’s done. What harm could it do?”

She sighed. “I suppose you’re right, as always. I’ll see you tomorrow, Avery.”

And with that, she stood up from beside me and left as quietly as she had come.

The next morning, as I and the latest arrivals came to see the sculpture, there was someone waiting for us in the small foyer before Elise’s gallery. She stood at the gallery’s entrance, her back towards us as she gazed into the sculpture room.

“Excuse me,” said the head of the crowd. “You wouldn’t happen to be---”

She turned around. There was a collective gasp. Even though I knew what to expect, I am ashamed to say that within it was my own.

There had been a question in my mind: now that the vision haunting her every waking thought was real, would it let her go? Would she regain what she had before it had seized hold of her so firmly? Was she free at last?

But I was wrong. The question was meaningless. Because there was no vision, and no Elise. The vision was Elise. Like a photonegative, or a mold to a cast, one could not produce a work of such magnitude without also remaking oneself. Just as she had spent years persuading stone to take her shape, the stone, in its own way, had achieved the same from the flesh around her.

“I am Elise Smith. Thank you all very much for attending my gallery.”

Her admirers were ecstatic. Credit to human nature, truly we can adapt to anything. They were only momentarily taken aback by the strangeness of her countenance, as indescribable as her sculpture. They swamped her in a flood of offers---famous venues, prestigious positions, frankly absurd amounts of money. Elise politely informed them that neither she nor her work would be leaving the valley, and the sculpture was absolutely not for sale.

In the end, Elise accepted a modest title of ‘Artist Fellow’ from a similarly modest institution. A banquet was held in her honor, in the town’s largest restaurant, attended by the institution’s president and the faculty of the fine art department. A somber affair: all its participants were mellowed by the quiet that followed both Elise and her creation, as well as all that looked upon them.

I flew back home to my partner and child. All and all this might have been a happily ever after.

I had some connections at Elise’s institution. One of the responsibilities of her position was that she compose monthly letters on the nature of both her work and on art as a whole. They informed me that these letters had grown increasingly erratic, before coming to a stop altogether.

Worried, a colleague of mine sent an excerpt from her last letter.

“On the Purpose of Art.

“The purpose of art is a pointlessly contentious question. To those of us who create it: Art is its own purpose. This is a truth felt deep within us, incontrovertible as existence itself.

“But perspectives exist outside our own. Evolutionarily, investing considerable time and resources on an exercise not directly related to survival demonstrates fitness to prospective mates. More directly, it may communicate problems and solutions both internal and external, to be woven into societal fabric to benefit others. Personal reasons often fall neatly into these two categories: desire for fame and wealth, the first. Activism and to leave one’s mark on history fit into the second.

“ But I, and perhaps you, find a third motivation. An urge that exists beyond even yourself, to make real an inexpressible truth, a phenomena of brain and heart and soul that withers and turns to ash when made bare to the harshness of the world around us.

“Art, then, is the twisting, the bending of the material, to make real what cannot be. To watch your creation strive and then collapse again and again as you try desperately to build some manifestation within which it can reside. Art is the balance of the adulteration of the existence within such that it can exist without, but not so much that the truth of that existence is lost. Art is to challenge the impossibility of this task. Art is to succeed.

“But even then success is not enough. To take this fragile thing and give it a body of stone still leaves it weak. Even when material form does not dilute the immaterial existence, even when the transmission of artistic truth is perfect, the stone will one day crumble. Its anchor in this world gives it resilience and permanence, but also tethers it to the physical truths that bind us as well. To be left to gather dust in some forgotten corner is the same to have perished, unexpressed. A body of stone lasts only a little longer than bone and flesh. Why can we not change what is beyond our reach, beyond our time? Why is it that to be real is to be finite, to be limited? Why is non-existence---death---the only infinity that we can touch?

“This, I suppose, is the price we pay, to bless this world with but a moment of expression. And we must be content with knowing that the inexpressible continues on, past when bones and stone alike turn to dust.”

I showed my partner Elise’s letter. My better half knew that to ask for advice meant my heart was unsteady for reasons my mind could not find. With the blessing of my family I flew back to find Elise with resolve. These are the things that fortify the soul against the uncertainties it finds in life.

True to her world, Elise had not left her town since her arrival. But years had passed. The circus that had once filled her tiny town had long since moved away. It had reclaimed its solitude, perhaps too eagerly---quiet and stolid had passed forth into disrepair and decay.

I knocked twice on Elise’s door. It rattled on its hinges. The entire townhouse groaned and complained.

Elise opened the door and stood in the doorway, head bowed.

“Avery---”

The halls were dark behind her, but in the gloom I could see the door to her gallery, barricaded shut. A bookshelf had been pushed against it, scraps and supplies were piled around it.

“Elise, are you alright? Why have you shut your gallery? Is the sculpture still---”

Elise’s shoulders began to shake.

“You came to see me, didn’t you? All those years, it was me, wasn’t it? I’m here, aren’t I. You don’t need to go there, you don’t...”

Elise was only moments away from sobs. Even in the darkest moments of the sculpture’s creation I had never seen her so distraught.

I pushed past her, and she flinched. But then I pulled the door shut behind her, and she looked up at me in shock.

“Let’s go for a walk then, shall we?”

Elise hesitated on her doorstep, then stepped off carefully, as if she had not left for a long, long time.

It was early evening, and the fading sun gave way to the dim glow from the lights of the homes along the way. The town was quiet, save for the sound of wind through the empty streets and the trees in the cliffs above them.

I had no destination in mind, but there were few places to wander within the town. Before long we found ourselves outside the quarry’s stoneyard. Elise pulled open the chain around its gate and let herself in.

The stoneyard was bright despite the darkening evening. Huge blocks of marble, stacked atop each other two or three high, collected what was left of the blue light and threw it across the yard’s winding paths. Elise seemed at ease here, running her fingers along the surfaces of rough stone.

I quickly lost track of which paths we had taken. My sense of direction followed soon after. The tall stone walls cut off any sight of the town, the trees. Even the wind was lost, wandering the paths in disoriented blusters. Elise was unperturbed and walked the labyrinth with familiarity.

She stopped, perhaps at the stoneyard’s center, perhaps not. There was a small clearing here, where several stone blocks had been shifted, taken or toppled over.

“I spent hours here, even before I had begun. Looking for the shape within the stone. For how that shape would shape me.”

She lifted her hand, as if reaching out to trace a memory of something which was no longer there.

“You found it, didn’t you? Your sculpture, it’s...” Words failed to describe it, as always.

“Yes, I did. The moment was...magical. Like love at first sight.” She smiled sadly. “But also, a vision of the end, into eternity itself.

“Avery, in my mind... I began to confuse us, the sculpture, myself. What was the difference? Flesh, stone, the medium means nothing---all my life I have labored as hard to create the sculpture as I have to make myself worthy of it. And now there are two of us. And she is so much more than I am, than I will ever be---What is the point then, of me, now that I have her to take my place? What more could I want? What more could I even ask for?”

The wind rose with the coming of night. No stars, no moon, yet still the marble glowed with its own internal light. Elise’s shoulders shook silently and I had the strange thought that she might be laughing.

“You've tried for years, to find the part of me that is not her. And I've gone through the motions, but I never found anything, Avery. There's nothing there.”

Elise fell to her knees, surrounded on all sides by heavy stone. I was spell struck and found it impossible to approach her.

But I had to nonetheless. With every step as heavy as lead, I walked over to her. I fell to my knees, took her face in my hand.

“You have to make a second one, Elise.”

She stared back at me, eyes wide and startled.

“I can’t,” she said. “She is all I ever had. I have nothing left.”

“Then find something. Make something from nothing. It’s what artists do. You---”

“I’m not an artist, Avery, I’m---”

“You don’t have a choice, Elise! There’s no other way. Make a second sculpture, then a third. Do it again and again. Prove to yourself that there’s more to you than that sculpture, even if it’s just another one. It’s the only way.”

I could see Elise struggle with the idea, face contorting as she tried to make sense of it. To envision how a life devoted to one monumental task could be reformed to take on another.

“It seems impossible, that I would ever be free of her,” she said at last.

It was well and truly night now. The glow of the stones no longer seemed to defy the darkness, and though the stoneyard was darker for it, it was somehow more navigable.

“You have to try. If you have nothing left, then you have nothing to lose.”

Dear Avery,

I hope this letter finds you well. I have news, either good or bad. It depends on your point of view.

Work continues on my second sculpture, but already I can tell, it is a failure. After years of work, it grows day by day more complete, and more apparent that it will never be a worthy successor to the first. I know already, what the first is, the second will never be.

Avery, it is the first time in my life that I have met failure. Doubt, struggle, even despair, I know them well. But all these were in service of an ultimate triumph, which steeled me against them. Failure has a finality that I had never expected to confront, perhaps even feared. But now, as I rapidly approach it, I realize I have found a new perspective on what I’ve had, and what I’ve lost.

My life has been defined by a purpose, and while it was unmet, I could not understand it. But now that it has abandoned me, I can feel its shape in the hollow it has left, in the cracks that it rent in its departure.

Consumed by it, I felt it as a desire for existence. Puzzling now, as I look back on it, as its existence was indisputable, both within and indistinguishable from my own. So if existence was not enough, then what was? Not simply to be made physical, as physicality is only one illusion among many. Not immortality, for stone too will one day crumble. Not fame, not fortune, all those things I eschewed in its pursuit. Then what was the nature of the desire that consumed me so powerfully, and without understanding, I somehow achieved?

The answer, I believe, is to exist within the minds of others. Or, in other words, to be understood. The transmission of an idea, perfect and uncolored by the mind that receives it. The power of the idea demanded it, the power of the idea allowed it to be achieved. And then, once it had, what to do with the shell that had birthed it, now so redundant and lost?

You and I, we thought that another sculpture might set me free, that the creation of a second might shape me just as the first’s, and somehow I might become more than it. But I was not shaped by my creation, any more than it was shaped by me. She and I found ourselves in this world and shaped it until we found a way to exist. The second sculpture has no such existence, and will never exert itself in the same way. Yet still, I continue to work. Even though to me it seems like food without taste, words without meaning, life without art.

Because, I’ve realized, this absence--maybe it’s not important. This sculpture means little more to me than all the sketches and studies I’ve created and discarded over the years. They served their purpose and I never thought of them again. But they persist, and some, even, are treasured. My neighbors effuse admiration, my teachers display them proudly in their homes, my parents send me photos of trinkets I had long since forgotten. They mean nothing to me, yet somehow they have become something to everyone else. Somehow, something is created by this imperfect transmission. Something real.

I have made a thousand people witness to what lives inside me, a thousand people have been made to understand what I am. But these people, I don’t understand any of them, not at all. And why do I deserve to live on, while those thousands in whom I reside--more compassionate, more complete--shall perish?

Avery, I write to inform you that I have destroyed the sculpture. I know this is unthinkable to you, but you could not have stopped me: I am soon to follow. My health is failing--slowly enough that I still hope to finish this second sculpture, but surely enough that the end is in sight. There is little I will leave in this world, but the sculpture--its shadow is too heavy for what little else there is. It bears so much of me--my ambitions, my weaknesses, my despair--that otherwise I cannot imagine I will ever be left in peace. At one time that might have been what I wanted, but now I am not so sure. Rather, if I live on only as a memory, if I entrust my existence to those who knew me--whether I am loved or forgotten, I feel as though I might at last be content.

Yours, truly.

Elise Smith

Enclosed with the letter was a fragment of stone in the shape of a human ear, so exquisitely textured that, warming in my hands, it seemed as soft as skin.