Person of Distinction
Vaitia of the Marble
The foremost sculptor of the age, whose figures are held, in the island's phrase, to breathe.
Vaitia is the foremost sculptor of the rings and the head of a school that carves for the whole island. Her figures in the Grand Gallery are the chief glory of its halls and are held, in the island's phrase, to breathe; her studio's hands cut the guardian-figures of the Helion's gates and the statues that stand along the bridges.
The marble itself she takes from the seaward quarries and has it roughed at the Marble Works before it comes to her bench; the finishing she trusts to no hand but her own and her best pupils'. She is famously exacting and famously generous with instruction, and holds that a city which raises good statues will raise good citizens by the same discipline — a saying the Civic Society likes to set beside Master Ouen's.