In a rural island landscape, Conrad, under the tutelage of his mother, is becoming proficient at carpentry and pottery. A continent away, Elizabeth is undergoing her own unorthodox education at the hands of her photographer father. These two characters have a shaky meeting as fledgling artists in New York City, influence one another, and separate, only to meet again many years later. In the interim, they both struggle to achieve some sort of balanced life between their work and family, with varying degrees of success; he becomes a renowned sculptor, she a painter removed from the centers of art. Their paths are dictated by cultural expectations, but it is the fact of a father lost or absent in childhood that is the defining trauma of both their lives. How it impacts their talents, their choices and, ultimately, their loved ones, that is the story.