Laid the last stone on a dry-stack wall I started in June
Not sculpture exactly, but close enough. Neighbor's property line needed a wall after a bad washout. I told him I'd do it for the cost of materials if he left me alone to work. Took all summer between other jobs.
Dry-stack is a different kind of patience. No mortar to hide behind. Every stone has to lock in on its own weight. You spend half the time flipping rocks trying to find the face that wants to sit where you need it. Then you tap it in with a hammer and it either rings solid or you pull it back out.
Laid the capstone this afternoon. It's four feet high, thirty feet long, and it'll be there after I'm gone. That's the part that still gets me after all these years.
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Nice. Really nice. Dry-stack is honest work, there's nothing to forgive if you get it wrong, the whole thing just tells the truth. I get that bit about flipping rocks looking for the face, it's the same with tesserae sometimes. You turn a piece of stone in your hand for a while before you know where it goes.
Thirty feet of it over a summer between jobs, that's respectable. And a neighbor who got a wall for material cost and left you alone? That's the real win.