NOTE: This review is being posted in a series. The first section contains information about the statue itself. The second section contains information about the process of sculpting and the third section contains more detail on the sculpting processes of chipping, sculpting, sanding and polishing. ****
Photo taken August 2008 in Rome, Italy, in front of the Il Gigante copy with friends Jon (the right) Doxey and Jon (the left) Callister.
This morning I read an absolutely WONDERFUL book and wanted to share with you. The book, The Angel Inside, was written by Chris Widener, a leading personal development coach. This little fiction story is about a 30-year old man, Thomas, who is unhappy in a career he has pursued in an effort to please his father rather than following his own passion. He travels to Italy in an effort to find some answers and on the last day of his trip he meets an elderly man who takes him to Michelangelo's statue of David, Il Gigante, and promises him that 'this day will change your life forever.' Through a closer look at Il Gigante, Thomas learns some important lessons. Here are the lessons and a few of the best quotes from each:
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1. Find the Angel Within You -
" . . . there is an angel inside you. There is a person of beauty. There is a person of power. David represented both . . . Not many men have interests that range from writing poetry and playing the harp to slaying giants and going to war. David, both the man and the statue, was beautiful and powerful . . . we all have a beauty to us. We are valuable just for who we are. But we are also capable of tremendous power. We can become people of great accomplishment. We can face the giants in our lives, even as David did, and win."
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"Think of the rejection of that marble. David lay there since the beginning of time. Many people looked at it and saw nothing. Nothing! No potential . . . but Michelangelo had the vision for what it could become . . . No matter what you think your life looks like now, or what you think ___ thinks, there is an angel that lies dormant within you. Every person has this tremendous capacity to be both king and warrior, a person of value and a person of accomplishment--- of beauty and power. When you understand this, when you embrace it and come to truly believe it, it will change your life forever. Your entire destiny will open before you . . .
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2. Follow Your Own Passion -
" . . . the world is filled with people who do not do what they love. Most people drift through life like a feather in the wind. They do not have a purpose that comes from their passion, from their strength. These are the men and women who the philosopher Thoreau said lead 'lives of quiet desperation.' Time passes, and as they near death, all they are left with is regret. Yet there is nothing they can do about it. Their lives are lost because they did not decide to do what they wanted."
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3. Be Confident in Your Strength -
" . . . in order to achieve what you want out of life, you must be confident. And as it relates to following your passions and utilizing your strengths, you must demonstrate self-confidence . . . you must have faith in some aspect of yourself. For instance, there are many things that I do not do well. However, there are many things that I excel at. It is in these that I put my confidence. The lesson is this: If you are to be successful, you must find self-confidence in the things that you do well, and then pursue them . . . you must stand confidently in whatever you do."
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4. The Beauty is in the Details -
"All throughout life there are people who do work of various sorts. Most people do average work. Some people do above-average work. The masters, the ones who succeed tremendously and set the standard for others, are those who master the details. The thing that makes an otherwise typical statue something that men and women today know in every culture is the emphasis on the details."
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"No matter what work you do, you must put your hand to it with the goal of absolute excellence-- and excellence comes from painstaking attention to the details . . . when we are working in areas we have no passion for, when there is no pleasure attached, it is natural for us to simply do whatever will get us by, producing work that is mediocre at best. We find our passion in what we love, in what brings us joy. We can spend hours on end on our passions and find that we easily lose track of time . . . when we are so engrossed in the details of the work that we find ourselves forgetting everything else."
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5. The Hand Creates What the Mind Conceives -
"There is a lesson here (the larger hand), but not the most important one. It is that sometimes parts of life must be bigger than others in order to bring balance. Many people believe that we should keep everything equal, but not if you want to excel . . . Many people desire greatness, but few realize the sacrifices you have to make to achieve it."
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" . . . our worlds . . . are created through the meeting of the creative brilliance of the mind and the diligent steadiness and skill of the hand. It is the bringing together of the power of the mind and the delicacy of the work of the hand . . . You conceive your world in your mind and then create it with your hands."
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Sharilee Guest, Founder and President
"The miracle is this-- the more you give, the more you have." -Leonard Nimroy
"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give." -Sir Winston Churchill
"You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for two things: the people you meet and the books you read." - Charlie "Tremendous" Jones
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