There’s an enigma among painters. Let’s say an artist studies and practices for twenty-five years of her life. Then she spends two hours painting a masterpiece. So did it take her two hours to create it? Or twenty-five years?
I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that sculpting a wall three stories high would take my entire life. There are splinters in my palm, open cuts on my fingers, and a deep purple bruise on my thumb caused by a rogue mallet. The block of oak looks more like a child’s forgotten pile of Play-Doh than the angular bison I’m trying to re-create.
A pigeon flies across the open space, landing on an old green dust-covered lamp. The whole building seems to shift and sigh, as if its alive. As if it’s hurting.
Sutton spent the past week with structural engineers and
