I had begun this journey hours before the sunrise. I unwrapped the plastic slowly,envisioning  little bits of the sculpture as I went: first a head appeared, then a shoulder. When I finished the task, I stepped back. I took one step at a time in a counterclockwise direction until I had circled the sculpture. I repeated this walk in the opposite direction. Then I closed my eyes and walked the labyrinth again, retracing the steps of that frigid February day.

In my mind the land beyond the labyrinth's border disappeared. I walked to the heart-space and retraced my steps. As I turned away from the heart, following the path, I could feel a sculpture building in me. I came suddenly to a turn, and as I took the few steps that brought the heart back into view, I saw it. The apparition was there in front of me.  The spirit that rested beneath the stone was illuminated. I was so close I could see all its details. In the present I was tracing the still wind, not moving. The world became abstract, I was brought into the dream. I asked aloud, "Are you there?" As I breathed I felt something, a presence, which would become a friend who would later stay up with me during the long nights as I sculpted, a friend who would rest a hand on my shoulder telling me it was all right. My friend's name is winter and you can see him in the light as it finds the form, a reflection from the past.  

The sculpture also has three other figures who became my friends: spring, summer, and fall. I started sculpting on spring. Spring comes from the ground and feeds the other seasons. My thoughts of a walk traveled through me and out of my hands, onto the clay. My tool started on Spring's back, finding the form. I kept the tool just off the clay as it moved. I traveled this way until my tool met the surface. The clay moved slowly over the hours. As I sculpted I walked on railroad tracks into a day that was cold and damp.  I found form and structure in everything. I saw Winter, too. It was in the cold water that fell from branches onto drinking roots, in the dance of rain, and in the sound of the life that enveloped me. I asked the sculpture where it was taking me. When I found the answer the sculpture took its first breath and Spring was born. I welcomed Spring into the world with my eager brush. I washed her clay skin this way and that. Hours had passed since I entered the studio, yet it felt like minutes. I stepped back. 

"Yes," left my lips. 

I began sculpting in the same manner on Summer and Fall as I had with Spring. This time my tool started exploring the back of Summer, then traveled over to Fall jumping back and forth between the two. I dove into the clay that connected them but began to be concerned.  I continued to sculpt. I was searching for something. I stood on my makeshift scaffolding for what seemed like hours, but was actually only minutes. "What am I doing wrong?" I said softly. "It must be here. It has to be here. I know it's here." I climbed down from the scaffolding and walked over to my chair. I sat with my head in my hands, almost sleeping. 

I did not actually feel the weight of a hand on my shoulder, but I did feel the gesture. It was at that moment that Winter became my teacher. I raised my head from my hands and turned to face the sculpture. I instantly knew what I had to do. I walked to the tool bin, with only one tool in mind, a tool that had been with me for over half of my life. I held the worn wooden handle and climbed the scaffolding. I smiled, then laughed aloud. I started removing the clay that held the two heads together, sculpting beneath the form to the negative space that holds the power of the sculpture. The presence of space was completing the form. I was afraid to stop, for fear I'd never be able to get back to this place. Yet, within minutes I was done. My tool had brought me through yet another form changing experience. I put it away in my pocket and replaced it with my finishing tool. In an hour I replaced that with my brush. An hour later I closed my eyes for a moment, meditating. I opened them and smiled. I closed them again, this time transporting myself back in time. Memories shifted with my heartbeat. I was sitting on a rock with my twin brother Michael and my sister Natalie. I could smell Maine in the air. I could hear the gulls and the crashing waves. In the distance my brother Tom was playing in tidal pools finding his fantasy. High up on another stone my mother was basking in the sun as my father swam in the ocean. As I breathed in this mood I could see my sister Lisa dancing. She danced with the wind's salt, a dance of the heart. I opened my eyes again and ran them across the form and into its secrets. The forms came together now even though they were not connected. I saw a kiss between lovers. I saw a kiss between friends. I remembered a vista scattered with buffalo. I remembered a distant sunset with my lover, and I thanked the form. I opened my eyes. 

Dinner was spent at our friends' house on the side of a mountain. I welcomed the break. When we got there I immediately went for a walk. The misty rain filled the cold damp air.  All I could hear was the wind and the crunching snow beneath my feet. Rusted farm equipment long dead and wet with rain passed me like great ghosts. The snow could not conceal last year's grass with colors of browns and reds. There were ancient stone walls the rocks of which were painted with moss, dirt and snow.  Streams played lullabies to the coming night.  Icicles cried and I could hear our children playing behind the orange glow of the farm house's windows. I stopped, closed my eyes and took it all in. "How beautiful life is," I thought.

After dinner, when we returned home and put the children to bed, I went downstairs and unwrapped the sculpture. I meditated on it with Alyssum, Miles Davis, and a hot cup of coffee. Outside the studio it was dark, damp, and cold. The temperature in the studio was perfect. We talked about art, kissed, and held each other for a long while. By the time I started sculpting, Alyssum and our children were fast asleep just above me. My tool slid across the form skipping, skimming and sliding to the outside beat. Billie Holiday helped me refine the form. And when I was ready to visit the dark spaces, it was Leonard Cohen who sang in my ear. As I sculpted I was holding my grandmother's hand when she entered Heaven. I saw the blue iris of a friend lost. I saw the mourning and my hands cried. I rested in the abstract. From outside my studio, I could hear the sounds of morning. The spirit smiled behind me, skipping its light across the floor. We grooved to Otis Reading, got down with Chet Baker, and became serious with the Duke. I looked to the drawing that was etched into the sculpture and in an instant I was bought back to one week before.

"How's it going daddy?" he said. I told him that I had been trying to find something funny in the sculpture and that I was having a really hard time.

Without hesitation, Guyaton, all matter of fact, said, "Daddy, just draw something funny on it." 

I could not help but lift Guyaton up in my arms and kiss and hug him, pronouncing his genius. I sculpted my canvas on the back of the legs of Fall. I called Guyaton back downstairs, along with my daughter, Carmen. "Okay guys, I need your help and it's really, really important." I led them to the sculpted clay canvas, "You see this area here?" I gestured to the sculpture. "I need you to come up with some funny pictures for it."

"What kind of pictures?" asked Carmen.

"Funny pictures," I said and tickled her. I set them up with cardboard cutouts that matched the clay canvas. Carmen ran her crayon feverishly from one end of the board to the other. Guyaton's crayons drew with determination. When they were done I proclaimed their genius and hugged and kissed them. I returned to the studio with their art in my hands. I copied Guyaton's drawing exactly as he drew it. I called him down and asked, "What do you think?" He looked at me and frowned. He then proceeded to the tool bin to grab a tool. "What are you doing, Guyaton?" I asked nervously. He went directly to the sculpture and, without looking once at his drawing, started carving into it. "My God," I thought. I looked at his original drawing and noticed that I had forgotten to put in the funny things that came out of one of the caricature's heads.

"Now it's done Daddy."

I was back in the present playing on Guyaton's lines. I was four again, and the abstract became my reality. I was seeing the form through Guyaton's eyes. I sculpted until Guyaton's reality became my reality and Fall was born. I stepped back as the sun started moving across the floor. I thanked the sculpture. The process had taken me to places I have never been.

After breakfast, with two cups of coffee, eggs, and toast weighing me down as I entered the studio, I proceeded to sculpt continuously until the sun fell. I cannot put into words what befell me in that time. It was heaven on earth. I stepped back from the sculpture in the early evening. I cried with Joy and with Pain. I stepped to the sculpture and asked for sleep; I was drawn in. I was a sleepwalker on its form, traveling from place to place. I traveled in the surreal. I stood alone in a world of clay. In the hours before daylight, I was confronted with Falseness and Insecurity. I was confronted with Guilt and Fear. I stood and looked directly into their reflections. With cold friends behind me, I was introduced to Truth. I sat in the spirit's chair and in what seemed like a blink of an eye, it was dawn again. I thanked the sculpture for its healing. I had sculpted from day to night and back again. The sun had been up only for moments and the birds had begun to sing. My tool lifted and dropped to the ground. I stepped back. I had sculpted a teacher, a lover, a son, a brother, and a father. I saw sad times and great times; I saw pain and felt its healing; I saw its abstraction and its reality. I saw the dream. I saw a friend I'd never met.

By Mark Pilato

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