clay thoughts

so, this first image is a decoy of sorts. when i post this on facebook, it will grab the first photo in the post, and i think the best way to start this is with a wild strawberry from the back yard.  don't you?

i have had my eye on a sculpting class for a while now.  it is taught downtown, where i have now taken a drawing class (got my feet wet) and an oil painting class (didn't drown)...and, now, a sculpture class (holding my breath under water until it comes out of the kiln).  specifically, until she comes out of the kiln.  it is a class with a live model, aspects of which i had not considered prior to this.  one of which was this dynamic, living, breathing, transactional experience for everyone in the room.  because the model was oh so alive with thoughts, opinions, history, and very much present each and every night we gathered around her naked body and pulled variations of her out of the clay.

in the long-ago past, i have attempted (and modestly succeeded) throwing pots and bowls on a pottery wheel.  in a similarly long-ago past, i have sculpted my own likeness...resulting in a bowling-bowl heft of fired clay with blue marble eyes mounted on an iron post in a flower pot.  some sort of college commentary in my senior year.  i love my hands in clay.  it is eminently forgiving.

it is, also, incredibly challenging.

exhausting, even.

tense and exhilarating.

frustrating yet completely satisfying.

i'm not sure it could ever grow old to me.

so, on night one, we gathered in the basement studio where i had sketched endless boxes for my drawing class and painted an entire board of variations on green for my oil class.  but this was different.  this was electrified, chatter-filled, crowded, even.  a central group of habitual sculptors (how many naked women must line their shelves?), a few actual artists (i suspect word got out that there was a new model), and a couple of newbies (yours truly and a young, giggly woman who claimed to love limericks & who never returned after the first night).

i did not bring my camera on the first night, but it became my habit to capture the previous week's work at the very beginning of the next class ~ before the model arrived, with her brown eyes always widening and appearing slightly startled when she first walked through the studio door each evening.  it was as if she had, each week, temporarily forgotten what would happen next.  later, at home, it was interesting to look at the flat and unresponsive pictures compared to how it felt when i stood in front of my evolving sculpture, smears of clay drying on my fingers.

i was not displeased at the end of the first night.  after a moment (or two or three) staring, aghast, at the lump of moist, dusky clay and wondering how, on earth, i was going to form a human out of it, i recovered myself and started considering shapes and angles and what was not there in order to craft what was.  spare guidance from the instructor followed on rare occasions when i asked for it and in one or two instances when i did not.  he was right every time, and i (almost always) followed his suggestion...narrower, thinner, leaner, look at how the spine travels from coccyx to cranium.

which might lead you to believe that it looked pretty good at the end of night one.  well.....seven more nights to go, but a solid start.

1.

side study with arm and head buds

back (with finished products on far table)

full frontal and a good foundation

~ ~ ~

2.

so, it goes that you make as sure as possible

that the belly and bust are close to done

before you block your access

with arms.

i spent a couple of nights

on belly, bust, shoulders, and legslegslegs...

another full frontal taking shape

 our frequently impassioned model

jumped right into provocative political conversations

during many of the early classes -

and, understandably but potentially inappropriately,

some of the class members eagerly asked her

questions about....everything, it seemed.

side view with loooooonger legs

 this class and next week's class,

i kept narrowing and elongating.

then doing it again and more.

our model was a willow of a woman,

probably about six feet tall,

which was a super-fantastic start

to my sculpting adventures!

posterior

making wings

~ ~ ~ 

3.

i started pulling out arms and making plans for a head

on night three.

rear view

 i definitely drew on my modest knowledge

of bones, muscles, and how the human body

is put together and moves.

it was helpful to be able to 'see' the scapula

underneath the trapezius

and how that muscle meets up with the deltoid

or how the pectoral muscles

pull across the upper ribs

with the breasts softening

down towards the belly,

which curves gently out

towards the top ridge of the pelvis.

another frontal with a start to the arms

 but i definitely found

i could not sculpt her from my head.

at least not this specific model.

i suppose i could have created a myth woman

from my head and ended up with a sculpture

that looked real enough.

but on the night the model had the flu and didn't arrive,

i sprayed water all over my figure, tucked her under the plastic bag,

and went home.

side boob, no blur

~ ~ ~

4.

is it an advantage to not be a perfectionist?

i think so.

it meant i could keep moving forward.

visioning

 the night i did her (first) face, our model was contemplative and tired.

and it ended up, that was her face at rest and stillness,

so that is the face on my sculpture.

and i thought on the last night,

when her smile lifted the apples of her cheeks

and brightened her eyes,

i wish i had taken a picture of this

and used it instead.

looking out the window

 but, instead, i feel i aged her,

turning a young woman middle-aged.

and i wondered if this was because

the body and face i am most familiar with

is my own.

advice: start out skinny with room-to-grow

 i really did like the face.

but....

it sat heavy on her shoulders.

a heavy brow

 ~ ~ ~

5.

so, the teacher advised...off with her head.

start fresh. make it smaller than you think

it should be.

looking away

 i just couldn't.

so i gave her more substantial shoulders

to hold up her majestic noggin.

looking away

 because i liked her face

just the way it is.

heavy with the weight of the world.

triangles

 ~ ~ ~

 6.

on second sight.

the eyes were an issue.

either bring them down or the brow up,

and teacher said...

eyes down.

sightless

 maybe i should talk more about what was complicated.

or what was not.

it was not complicated that no one

no one

should have looked closely at personal decorations

on her body.

(as in brought his nose to within inches

of her naked shoulder to inspect a dragonfly tattoo,

should that have been the case.)

no one

should have asked her about any of these.

no one

should have said even one

little itty bitty anything

about her that you could not have

would not have

said to her had she been standing,

as her six-foot tall amazon self,

had you encountered her on the street

both waiting for the bus

both fully clothed.

 if there is something you would have

could have

said to her in this instance,

standing there, both fully clothed,

strangers 

waiting for the bus.

and this something

that you felt you could say to her

or to ask her

would not entitle her

justify her

in completely decking you, 

then....okay.

you can say that.

and that should be the bar

that all clothed people should hold to

when standing in a circle

around a naked person,

staring at her,

prowling around her,

measuring her with sticks,

and pulling her likeness

out of clay.

orbless but not boobless

i did the hands on the sixth night.  which just about did me in.  hands are hard, and these were some of the very hardest, what with all the overlapping and interlacing.  i kept counting fingers and ended up with very large hands.  there was just no way around it, given the scale and my inexperience.  large hands it is.

criss-cross

~ ~ ~

 7.

we had back-to-back marathon sculpting sessions at the end, to make up for the flu-missed session midway through.  and something was not right, but i may have been the only one to notice.  something had happened, and she was sad.  i think she, partly, wanted to tell.  and, certainly, the very last night, she wanted a path to do that, but one did not appear.  for all the intimacy the situation might imply, that was, in the end, not the case.  so she sat there, mostly silent, blind without her glasses, and held the pose in her usual calm way.  once disrobed and on the blanketed platform in the center of us, mostly at ease (but not completely, i think.  when would that really ever be the case?) with the peeping toms and janes surrounding her.

but, then, again

maybe i don't know what i'm talking about.

i went with blobby hair

i realized after night six that i was sculpting how i draw...and that seemed...off...since the medium was clay.  pencil lines are precise and clean and flat, in the end.  clay is messy and soft and vague, like the body.  in particular, i had 'drawn' the hair & needed to fix that.  so i did what my instructor was doing, and 'blobbed' it on.  it was a fine line between that and medusa.

signed.  it's official now.

 i was still struggling with making the face

lighter, happier, younger.

here's looking at you

 ~ ~ ~

 8.

 so, this is how it ends.

your time runs out.

curtains drawn

but i was content.

 would that the feet and hands were

more precise.

they lack clear bones and joints,

hollows, nooks, and crannies,

the most complicated

and amazing

and essential

parts of a body.

ah, well.

i tried.

in relief

so, now she waits.

and dries.

and enters the hot hell of the kiln

to, hopefully,

return to me a baby aspirin orange

with no blown off or missing parts.

looking towards the muse

 people are complex.

what you think you know

you do not.

you cannot guess

with any certainty

motivation

desires

fears

~

 you simply cannot.

so be kind.

we are fragile beings,

naked and clothed.