Tearing Apart

So I went to my studio....


I decided I needed to add “cuffs” to the arms of my sculpture. No not those kind of cuffs! These are jacket cuffs and because the arms are upright they kind of slid down. This is a win win situation as the arms were so thin at the bottom I was worried about the stability of the sculpture. Those arms are so thin that the top heavy sculpture could easily fall over. A very practical consideration for sure but in this case necessary. As a result the whole sculpture is affected in its look and balance. Therefore now I have to make sure that in working the surface color and detail I do not distract from the focal point, being the rope and the hands.


I was on my way home after adding the jacket cuffs I suddenly remembered that I’d left the sculpture “fused” on the wood base. This was not good. Even though I’d covered it with plastic to reduce drying I knew that by the time I got back to it some drying would have occurred. As the clay dries it shrinks. Being fused onto the wood base on which it was created would mean it would tear itself up as it shrank. All night I worried and dropped in the next day just to check. Sure enough it had begun to do just that. (See photo above.) Naturally, I “unfused” the sculpture from the wooden base and did a quick repair on the tears.


Perhaps I shouldn’t have repaired it. Perhaps the tear was meant to be part of pain of the sculpture.


Maybe it represents the wound of my heart. Maybe it is everything that has ripped us apart. Both on the outside where it becomes visible to others, and on the inside,


If it shows up again, I think I’ll leave it there...


Another man dies in bitterness of soul, never having enjoyed anything good.Job 21:25

Just say it, "Rodents!"

So I went to my studio on Clifton....

Today I’m carving rodent bites into the fingers of my sculpture. I am defacing my sculpture and I don’t like it!

Can I say that I am disgusted with this piece of art? It hurts to do it. It represents the worst in human kind and it’s ugly to think that I have to deface it to represent the facts of what happened to my daughter.

I’ve never felt like this about anything I’ve created before! I’m so sorry to lay all of this on you my readers. Let me suggest that you come back and read my blogs after I’m done with this one and have something pleasant to create and talk about!

"And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.”

Mark 9:42

A Tight Rope

So I went to my studio on Clifton....

Spent a few hours working on the rope. I am quite happy with the results. I used a wood tool to make the twisted groves in rope and then for the "twist in the twist," I used a comb's teeth to lightly brush along the rope. Makes it look like an old hemp kind of rope. Reminds me of binder twine which we used every where back on the farm when I was a kid.


It is also important in this case to indicate the tightness of the rope. This can be done in several ways...make the rope look like it's stretching, the straight lines of the rope itself, bunching up the skin, the swelling of the skin and showing how it is pressed into the skin or the wrist. All of it screams of pain.


Not only do I know that Candace is alive today but that God numbed her feelings just for this, the biggest test of her life....

"Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed."
Job 4:7

Lifeless

So I went to my studio on Clifton....

There is more to this sculpture than just the hands. It is not eassy to get into! So why am I doing it? I don’t really know and am too afraid to go there right now.


I will simply make it and put all the horror into it that I can. Make it cold. Make it calculating. Make it ugly. Make it painful. This will be at least one statement that I can make.


I have for the first time been counting the hours. So far it has been 5.5 hrs. of work. There is still much to be done. My plan is to give it an under-glaze coat of off white of some kind while it is leather hard then a light wash of a light brown. I plan to finish it with a pure white glistening glaze on the up side of everything to simulate frost.


My plan is to make a stand of about one foot high for it. It will have strands of DNA etchings on the sides coming up over the top edge an inch or two. They will also be off white with a light brown wash to bring out the DNA etchings on the sides.

The hands are my own hands. It is the only way I can do it at this time!

"But God has seen my hardship and the toil of my hands..." 
Gen. 31:42