Everything for Nivola goes back to his childhood. His wife Ruth tells how he instinctively invented what later became the technique of sand-casting. While playing with his children on the beaches of Long Island, he would amuse himself by leaving defined footprints in the sand and then filling the imprints with plaster. With this technique he produced, among others, the wonderful panels that adorn a long corridor at the Science Center of Harvard University. An original technique, and certainly not random if we consider his experiences as a child working with his mason father as the origin of this elevation of the craft to an almost holy level, and the playful spirit that never left him.