Dreams showed the way to João Gregório da Rocha, a countryman born in Santa Cruz de Inharé (RN), in 1945. “I didn’t have an education, and my world had always been the smallholding, with an axe and a knife in my hands. But one day I dreamt I went to Natal and worked as a carpenter and I moved there for real in 1970. I did a bit of everything. I asked God to show me a different kind of job so I wouldn’t have to run around so much anymore. And then I dreamt I was sitting down, making a chain of wood with a heart on both ends. It was beautiful. In the morning I tried to make it but couldn’t get it right. In the evenings after work, I carried on trying all through the night. I got a piece of wood and managed to make a chain that was 1.20 metre long. I really loved the chain, but my wife gave it away as a gift. So I decided to make more and today I sign all my pieces as Gregório. One Saturday I set up a stall outside an office and sold all of them. Then I made cows being milked, which is what I used to do. I made water-carrying trucks. And all I made, I sold. It was a much better job, just like the one I had asked God for. I never measure or trace anything; it’s all in my imagination. I just take the wood and start carving.”