New Statues for the Grotto Idea

Cleaning out the grotto gave me an idea. Recently I cleaned out the grotto, scrubbed down the statue, hosed down the stone work to remove built up dust and dirt and then cleaned the flooring. While doing that I thought that this would be a good time to put another statue in the grotto. I consulted a religious goods dealer in Denver who has experience with these things. He strongly urged that we avoid painted statues because over ten years or less the paint will begin to develop spider cracks and then chip away. He suggested that if we are not going to use marble or bronze (both of which are way out of our price range) we should look at plain white fiberglass. He recommended a website, elementsofhome.com Originally I thought of getting a statue of St. Joseph at the same dimensions of the current statue since having the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph together is pretty traditional. Then I thought we could go with two themes by getting a statue of the Holy Family (Joseph, Mary and the child Jesus) at 15 inches wide, 7 inches in depth and 25 inches in height. The second statue would be a Pieta with the Blessed Virgin holding the corpse of her Son after He was taken down from the cross, 20 inches wide, 10 inches in depth and 28 inches in height. Both would be smaller than the current statue but will fit within the spaces provided in the grotto and together would run about $500.00. The idea would be to show the child Jesus came into the world to die for us. Another option is to leave the statue of the Virgin Mary where it is and get a statue of the Archangel Gabriel who brought the Mystery of the Annunciation to the Virgin or a statue of the Archangel Michael. We are limited in what we can do since the shelf is 14 inches in depth and I do not want to place a statue whose base is larger than what the shelf can hold. So…we can keep the current statue and get one of St. Joseph (same size at 59 inches in height at a cost of $1,600). We can transfer the current statue to the CCD wing and get two smaller statues each with its own theme. We can keep the current statue and get one of the Archangel Gabriel or Michael. Or we can get two statues of the two Archangels and place the Marian statue in the CCD wing. And there may be other options. Any thoughts? If I don’t hear from anyone in the next couple of weeks I will assume any decision I make will be acceptable. So speak now or forever hold your peace.