Blasting Jesus: A Starving Artist’s Miraculous Mess in 1984

By Scott Prentice
Aberdeen, South Dakota – Circa 1984

Picture this: It’s 1984, and I’m a wide-eyed, broke-as-a-joke college kid at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota. I’d just scraped together enough cash to set up my first real art studio—a cramped, dusty space dedicated to glass etching, my latest obsession. But let’s be honest, I was no Picasso. I was a “starving artist” in the literal sense, freelancing signs, marketing gigs, and whatever odd jobs kept the ramen boiling. Sandblasting? That was my shiny new toy, a craft I’d stumbled into during those early, exhilarating days of chasing an art career. I’d splurged on an air compressor, bags of sand, and all the gear, convinced it would blast me into artistic stardom. Spoiler: It almost blasted me right out of town.

One crisp Friday morning—early spring or late fall, the kind of chilly day that nips at your knuckles—my world got a surprise upgrade. In walks Raisin, my old farm buddy from Minnesota. We grew up a couple miles apart, hay-baling and hell-raising on neighboring spreads. His nickname? A nod to his short stature and korney giggle, what the heck my brother was known as Strawberry? Anyway, he shows up unannounced at my studio, grinning like he’d hitched a ride on a combine. I was thrilled—company, and free labor? Jackpot.

No sooner had Raisin kicked the door shut than the phone rang. It was a gravelly voice on the line, some curator from a church-owned cemetery on Aberdeen’s outskirts. Word of my sandblasting wizardry had trickled through the local grapevine. “You do sandblasting?” he asked. “Heck yes,” I lied with the enthusiasm of a man who’d barely scratched his own name into glass. He needed a life-size Jesus statue cleaned—right in the cemetery’s heart. He was skipping town for the weekend but greenlit me to start ASAP. “Can’t miss it,” he said. “Dead center.”

Cost? I winged it. Hauling gear out there, blasting a 7-foot marble savior on a 4-foot pedestal (11 feet total—yikes), maybe two days’ work. “$75 a day,” I quoted. “$150 flat.” He laughed. “Deal. Get to it.” Raisin and I high-fived, loaded my beat-up truck with compressor, extension cords, sandbags, and the blaster, and peeled out like we’d won the lottery.

The cemetery was farther out than expected, a quiet sprawl of headstones under a vast prairie sky. We found Him: Jesus, life-size and looming, arms outstretched in eternal benediction. But oh, what a sorry sight. Corrosion had turned the marble a dingy, brownish-gray—grimy, calcium-crusted, like He’d been rolling in decades of Dakota dust. Beautiful in theory, disgusting in reality. “Ladders,” I muttered. “And more cords.” It was lunchtime by the time we looped back to town, so we grabbed burgers, plotted our attack, and decided: Saturday morning it is. Raisin was all in—free room, board, and a front-row seat to my impending disaster.

Saturday dawned bright. We hauled ass back out, hooked up the compressor (hissing like an angry goose), loaded the blaster, and fired a test shot. Standard protocol: Blast a square foot, time it, scale up. I suited up—respirator fogging my goggles, safety glasses pinching my nose—and zeroed in on Jesus’s right foot. Sand roared out in a gritty hurricane. Five minutes. Eight. I peeled off the gear, wiped sweat, and stared.

Nothing. Zilch. The foot looked as crusty as before.

Dismay hit like a cold front. Gear back on—15, 20 minutes this time, broader strokes, closer blasts. Sweat poured. I covered the whole foot. Off came the mask.

Still nothing. “What fresh hell is this?” I yelped to Raisin, who was lounging on a nearby tombstone, fighting a smirk. My brain screamed: Days. Weeks. You’d need a lifetime supply of sand to dent this thing. At max pressure, another 30 minutes on that damn foot. Sweat soaked my shirt; the compressor whined like it was begging for mercy. Reveal? Identical filth.

I was unraveling. “Raisin, this is a $150 nightmare. I’m ruined.” He eyed me, then the statue, a slow grin cracking his face. “Ever clean a toilet? Chemicals, man. They eat through anything—even the worst porcelain atrocities.”

Brilliant. Deranged. But brilliant. We bolted to the local grocery, hit the cleaning aisle like commandos. Bleach? Check. Ammonia? Got it. Powders for “tough stains,” liquids promising “miracle shine”—we grabbed a cartful. “This thing’s like 15 toilets,” Raisin quipped, and we both snorted, the blasphemy hitting us mid-aisle. Checkout: $40-plus. Ouch, but desperation doesn’t do discounts.

Back at the cemetery, we bucketed up the first offender: Cleanser plus water, slopped on with brushes scavenged from my studio. Waited. Nada. No fizz, no foam. Raisin: “Mix ’em. Stronger.” We brewed combos—powders dissolved in liquids, no water this time. Spot-tested Jesus’s foot like mad scientists. Sun climbed; we mopped higher, slathering arms, robes, that serene face. Still zilch. By noon, desperation peaked: “All in.”

Into the bucket went everything—six, seven vessels of chemical warfare. A splash of water. It foamed lazily, like a disappointed volcano. I dunked the mop and went to town, drenching every inch. Crevices? Saturated. Crown of thorns? Soaked. Half a bucket left? Poured it straight on. I was a dripping mess of sweat and solvent, oblivious to Armageddon risks—etching the marble, poisoning the grass, summoning divine wrath. Who cared? I was $60-70 deep in gas and groceries. Please, just work.

Spoiler: It didn’t. No whitening, no glow. Just soggy gray. Defeated, we hosed the evidence, packed up, and slunk home. Sunday blurred by—Raisin split for Minnesota; I nursed my wounds in the studio, tallying losses. First flop of my career. Lesson learned: Don’t blast deities. No prayers from this lapsed spiritual seeker—just a vague, personal faith in Jesus that didn’t extend to church pews back then.

Monday morning: Phone shrieks. It’s the curator, voice booming like Judgment Day. “Scott! What did you do?!” My stomach dropped. Purple Jesus? Blue? A $25,000 lawsuit? He was loud, excited—Stern? Shocked? “Oh my God, I can’t believe it!” Visions of courtrooms danced. “You’ve gotta come see this. It’s a miracle.” Miracle? “I’ll pay you—now.”

I floored it to the cemetery, heart pounding under a flawless prairie sun. A mile out, I spotted Him. Gasped. Quarter-mile? Jaw on floor. Dead center: Jesus, radiant white—not just clean, but glowing. An aura, like He’d been Photoshopped by heaven. The green lawn, somber stones—they framed Him like spotlights. This wasn’t marble; it was luminescence incarnate.

The curator waited, beaming wider than I’d ever seen. “Scott, I don’t know how—and I don’t wanna know—but this? Unbelievable. No one’s touched this thing in decades.” I gaped, then muttered the truth: No sand. Just… alchemy? “Well,” I said, channeling my inner prophet, “I do believe in miracles.”

He handed over the $150—plus a tip, and eternal gratitude. We shook on it, laughing like fools. Driving back, windows down, wind whipping my hair, I replayed it all. Starving artist? Sure. But that day, in a forgotten cemetery on Aberdeen’s edge, I blasted into legend. Or at least, a killer memory of blasting Jesus.

Scott Prentice is a lifelong artist, storyteller, and survivor of ’80s mishaps. His work—from glass etchings to memoirs—lives at scottprentice.com.