Part Primus:

Once, there was a great Dwarf sculptor whose name was Finn.

Finn’s talents were extraordinary even in the that age. They had been so from an early age, and, although Finn was lauded and praised beyond belief as a child prodigy…

…perhaps, indeed, in part because of the lavishness of the praise…

Finn had an extraordinary humility. Finn was, if anything, perhaps a bit embarrassed. He knew that his work was not without its difficulty or struggle, but so much had come to him, so quickly, so naturally, that he felt it a bit unfair, perhaps. Perhaps he simply did not prefer to compare himself to other children, and later other students; he was so far ahead in so many ways, in so many things that the Dwarves valued greatly, that he was told his whole life he was destined for greatness.

            Jak argues that Art is greater than the individual; has he not said, “It is the Art, it is the Creation and the Work, and its totality in the World; and Artist is merely its tool. Its most important, its most obligated tool; a tool to serve the Art. And in this is Purpose.”

            It was widely believed that he was attempting to impress Rowan at the time, who merely said,

            “The World is the World, and by its nature, attempting to grasp its totality from without is impossible. Perhaps this is only your path, and you see it in others because you desire it for yourself.”

            Jak picked up his hammer, walked to Rowan, and handed it to her handle-first. He then proffered his parietal lobe, bending his head.

            “I can’t tell you that you’re right, but I can’t say that you’re wrong. Please end my indecision.”

            Rowan looked at the hammer, kissed him upon the forehead, and said, “This is a nice hammer. Its return should provide you with sufficient incentive to learn to speak. I admire your method and look forward to hearing more about it when you come to retrieve this.”

            She then walked away.

But in this thing, perhaps Jak was correct. Finn’s light could not at all be hidden. He rapidly became well-known, then famous, and soon they began to call him, “The greatest artist of our time”.

His art, indeed, is likely excellent, and that which we believe to be his is, indeed, of extraordinary quality. But we know the identity of few pieces, for such was Finn’s humility that he refused to sign his work.

Indeed, eventually, once he was well-off, he began to refuse to take credit for his work. He would do jobs for solo clients on the condition that they truly not tell anyone it was his; or that, cleverly, they say it might be his, or it might be a clever imitation.

When he became wealthy, he hired a few clever agents to go around and obfuscate the trail. He wanted to serve the Art. He did not wish to be served by it.

But again: this level of service to the Art came only after much time. Even with his skills, it took many years to acquire the wealth and ability needful for such things.

This is, perhaps, a meritorious life. If you are dedicated to making things, then perhaps, if you are in a position of great material comfort and general success and safety, this is an offering you can make. To P’tah? To the World? To Art? To your own, secret soul?

Perhaps so.

But Finn had never needed to be found, never needed to establish himself, never needed to secure his own base. This is no crime in him; he was simply too talented, and in a place which valued those talents far too much, for that to have been his path. He wanted to sculpt, he did the hard work, he made the sculptures; it was not any weakness in him if their value was so visibly apparent that people sought to acquire them and reward them from him his whole life.

He had never needed to convince anyone of the value of his art; it was obvious. And he didn’t really need to convince anyone to go along with his strange desire to hide; they wanted the art.

Finn created extraordinary art.

Finn died wealthy, accomplished, and successful at his goal at none knowing which works of art were his own.

Finn died a very, very unhappy Dwarf.

His is a cautionary tale.

Part Secondus:

The Great Competition To Create The Great Dwarf Statue

This Finn did do:

He set up a competition.

He said, “Instead of searching for the meaning of ‘good’, let us decide! I will fund a vote.”

It could be said that Finn put his entire fortune into this worthy task. He did not. His fortune really was, while not vast, significantly more than comfortable.

Here was to be the mechanism:

“Rather than decide any single aspect of the statue, we shall simply decide upon a statue. So many of us sculpt, in great or little ways. Let there be a competition among sculptors. Rather than saying that a ‘good’ statue of a Dwarf should have a certain expression, wear certain clothing, be in a certain style, be done this way or that, express this thought or motion or another… let us vote.”

(The Dwarves have tried many methods of voting over the years. They do not trust them well. He ergo had to create one.)

“I will make for thee voting sigils. I will make them myself. With this vast workshop and quarry I have, and my army of apprentices, and my wealth, and the skills of mine which thou hast lauded, I’ll create a hundred uniquely-sculpted sigils. See, here is the first one; I have used all my skills to make it difficult to duplicate, and hopefully pleasing to the eye. On the Day of the Competition, the hundred Sculptor Dwarves we have chosen by lot and arrangement shall unveil their sculptures. All shall vote, and that which is decided as best can stand as a model for all, that we might have something for which to strive. Perhaps two statues shall tie or near-tie, and we shall have two schools. Perhaps even a third or fourth school if there is a heavy favorite. But we shall get closer to knowing what is an ideal statue of a Dwarf, and then we shall have a solid way to make art going forward, a Caementicium of Art.

I have arranged with the Priests of P’tah to hold the votes, that they may be secret, and none are influenced by the fear of his neighbor.”

(“What is to be the method of the Lot? How did the Guild of Sculptors agree to this? How will votes be kept anonymous? What shall prevent the Priests from gossiping?”)

(“These are good questions. Perhaps someone will pick them up.”)

On the Day of the Great Competition To Decide Upon A Good Dwarf Sculpture, thusly it went:

I. Arrived did all the sculptors, having brought their sculptures to the assigned place in dark of night; it could have been done more easily in the day, but surely suspense was, if more complicated, surely more fun. Hail Dionysus!

II. There were sixteen statues of Dwarves.

III. Eighty-four, thus, were missing. There was much speculation. The artists were present; they weren’t saying much, but they were present, and those who had not made statues were neither grieving nor envious; nor did they apologize. Nor, even, did they go and kick a rock.

IV. They were all unveiled at once.

V. Four were straight-up terrible.

VI. This is how they were decided to be such:

Finn, already in distress, went to a friend of his who was an afficionado of the works of Jak, and not quiet about it.

“Pray thee,” he begged, “make thou a defense of these statues. Let not this competition, already be made strange, embarrass the creators of these things by disheartening them.

“Speak, please, the words of Jak, or of Soren or Juvenal, perhaps. Explain to them that there is beauty even in the ugly, as you have so often put forth to me with such eloquence.”

The friend looked at Finn, looked at the statues, looked at Finn, looked at the statues, and paused. He looked at Finn. He looked at the statues.

“I shall buy thee a flagon of absinthe! Thou may speak as much as thou desireth! Remember the Saturday last, at the tavern, when you gave us that discourse on Jak’s opinion on the table, and the beer, and the fire, and the service, for ten hours straight? And we listened, because you were buying?”

“I shall buy. Speak! Speak! Give me words that I might defend these statues.”

The friend looked at the statues for a long while.

“I’m sorry. But those are just terrible. I don’t want to talk about it.”

And so it goeth.

VI. They voted.

VII. This was the vote:

887 votes were cast.

The sculptors who had not been making statues of Dwarves had put their time and their energy and the Art into crafting very, very good forgeries of Finn’s Voting Piece.

The forgeries were very, very good. Finn himself might have been able to tell, perhaps, maybe even with certainty, but absolutely not through that many tears.

There were, indeed, winners and losers among the statues. But as it was impossible to know who had made what lots and how many. The voting was broken.

VIII. But Finn had, once again, made a great contribution to Art!

IV. Finn’s Voting Piece is considered one of the greatest Dwarven sculptures of all time. It has, of course, been described so often and so much that we need not bore you with it here. It is magnificent, and it is, indeed, very very difficult to copy, even now, when it is usually the piece used to determine when an apprentice has reached the Journeyman stage by almost everyone who works with stone.

X. Thus the Humility of Finn teaches us a lesson:

XI. Finn tried to create great art. He tried to separate himself from it, from the way others saw it, from the way other spoke of it. He tried to make it easier to understand what “Good” art might be, if one is commanded to make it.

XII. In almost all these things, Finn succeeded.

XIII. Poor Finn.

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