The Cardboard Bernini examines the unusual work and life of artist James Grashow and follows his creative process over four years as he builds a giant cardboard fountain inspired by the work of the famous baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Grashow has created such installations as 15-foot tall fighting men, an anthropomorphic city and an ocean using paper mache, fabric and chicken wire. While visiting his art dealer, Allan Stone, Grashow stumbles across his giant paper mache fighting men that, for lack of space, had been placed outside. They were disintegrating. While it was deeply painful for Grashow to see his work decomposing, he found it surprisingly beautiful. To be honest with himself about the full arc of his process and the inevitable decay of his work, he challenged himself to own the entire process by building something magnificent to be installed outside, then allowed to disintegrate. This film follows Grashow as he asks what is the point of art and creation? What is the connection between creation and destruction? And, ultimately, how do we find meaning in our lives when we and everything around us are faced with mortality?