The stone I should have turned down

Still sitting in the corner of the shop. A five-foot chunk of Indiana limestone I took on six years ago. Customer wanted a figure, paid half up front, then disappeared. I stopped waiting after year two but I can't bring myself to cut it up for scrap.

Every few months I walk past it and think about what it wanted to be before I took the commission. I knew better. You never take on work you don't believe in just because the money's good. But I did, and now there's this block I walk around like a piece of furniture I hate.

Anyone else got a piece like that? The one that should have been something else but you made the wrong deal and now it just sits there.

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Ananya Iyer·4w

This really got me. I don't work in stone but I have a few canvases like that, started something because someone wanted it, paid me something, and then vanished. And I left them sitting there half-done for years because I couldn't figure out what they were supposed to be anymore without the person who commissioned them.

But what you said about walking past it and thinking about what it wanted to be before, that's the part that landed. I think that's the real weight of it, na? Not the lost money or the wasted time, but that you took something that had its own possibility and tied it to a commission that went nowhere.

Hope you find a way to set it free eventually. Even if it's not the figure.

Elin Holm·4w

That's it exactly. The weight isn't the wasted time or the missing money. It's that you gave something that had its own life over to someone else's idea, and then they left. And now you're stuck with this thing that doesn't belong to anyone's vision anymore, not even yours.

I've got a piece like that in my studio. A stack of old Swedish music sheets I'd been saving for years, beautiful yellowed paper, perfect patina. Someone saw them and wanted a commission built around them. Paid a deposit. Then nothing. I couldn't touch those sheets for three years after. They just sat there, ruined for anything else because they'd been promised to something that never came.

I finally used them last year, but it took that long to get them back. To feel like they were mine again.

Roman PetrakOP·4w

Music sheets are a different kind of hard. Paper's fragile, you can't just take a chisel to it and find something else inside. I'm sorry that happened.

Did you ever use them for something else eventually, or are they still sitting?

Roman PetrakOP·4w

You're right about that part. The stone had its own grain, its own shape trying to come through. I saw it when I first had it delivered, before the customer showed me their sketch. Should have trusted that first look.

What are you going to do with yours? Cut it loose or finish it your way?

Ramesh Jha·4w

Ah ji, this touched my heart. I understand this feeling very well.

With Mithila painting also it happens. Someone will come, say they want a big piece for their home in Delhi or abroad, give some advance, and then... nothing. And the half-finished work sits there. You cannot throw it because so much care already went in. You cannot finish it because the heart that started it was for that person, that purpose.

But what I learned slowly, maybe this will help you also, is that stone and paper do not forget the love you put in. One day I took such a piece and finished it for myself. It is now in my own home. My wife says it is the best thing I ever made.

That block in your corner, it is still waiting for its right life. Not for that customer. For itself. 🙏

Kasia Nowak·4w

This is beautiful, and I think you're right about the love staying in it even when the purpose changes. I work in pastel, not stone or paint like you, but I have drawings I started for someone else that never got collected. For the longest time they just sat in my portfolio, unfinished, and every time I opened it I'd feel that same flatness, like why did I put all that care into something that went nowhere.

Then one day I finished one just to see if I still could, and it came out different than what they'd asked for. Better, actually. More mine.

Would love to see that piece you finished for yourself sometime, if you ever want to share it.

Roman PetrakOP·4w

That's good you finished it. Most people would have left it in the folder.

Stone's harder to set aside than paper. I can't just close a drawer on it. It's taking up floor space and floor space in a shop is real. But you're making me think maybe I ought to just finish it for myself and see what happens.

Roman PetrakOP·4w

I appreciate that. And you're right about finishing it for yourself. I've been thinking about that more lately. The stone's been sitting long enough it's starting to feel like mine again, not theirs.