All posts tagged Clay

Oh to go somewhere. To get in the car and drive. Somewhere far from icy roads and winter wind chills…

Instead I’ve been finishing up some sculpture for the exhibition at Dickinson State University in March. Like this piece – Prey Drive 2.

You might remember the previous Prey Drive sculpture-

Prey Drive 1 didn’t survive the firing process and was never finished. It hung around the studio for a long while until I finally threw it to Mr. Hammer… sadly. I’d always meant to attempt to remake this piece. These photos and the ability to compare both version side by side show how “remaking” doesn’t produce identical results.

I had every intention of adding more bunnies. I made more bunny passengers. When I placed the driver in this guy’s head one seemed right.

I might make another with more bunnies. But this guy is one bunny. One super cool, top down, wind in your hair (hare?) solo driver.

Thought I’d show you the center of a hollowed out sculpture. The insides of these pieces is as interesting to me as the outsides. Just the “skin” remains. They begin solid. Solid mass o’ clay. That doesn’t work at all in the long term. Heavy + firing complications + “waste” of clay.

This is the piece that I’ve finished hollowing today. Since my camera tripod was nowhere to be found I did the old “hold-camera-at-arms-length-and-see-what-you-get” technique. Okay… so the sculpture was out of focus, Frank is happily in the background and my winter Sorel boot is lazily flopped next to the door.  Did you know Sorel boots are the favorite toys of bored Greyhounds? I grabbed the boot out of Sage’s mouth as he was attempting to sneak it out the door. They make excellent tug toys. Very durable.

Finally… after a few tries… the camera snapped the photo I was looking for… kinda. But you CAN see inside this piece. See the underside of the nose/muzzle pointing up? You’re looking up this creatures neck.

I cut the head and part of the neck off at roughly the shoulders. It is easier to deal with sections rather than the entire heavy head, though I suppose I could hollow out the entire bust without cutting the piece apart. Oh my aching back. These guys are heavy – I go through about 45-50 pounds of clay for one of these life-sized bust sculptures.

Here’s the shoulders of the above head/neck. I have already carved away most of the center, making a starter hole in which to begin the removal of the insides of this piece.

I use a wooden clay tool for most of this. It’s way easier to use a wire loop tool and sometimes I’ll use that for the center most portion of the piece I’m hollowing. Mostly I use a wooden tool.

These photos show the process of scooping out the center. As I scoop, I support the outer wall with my hand, and scoop, scoop, scoop. Compressing the clay and removing the excess.

When I’ve removed all but about 3/8″ of thickness of the clay, I smooth the inside, then reattach the head/neck to the shoulders. You can see I’ve got more work to do before I’m to that point with this piece.

The entire process of hollowing takes about 2 days of work.

While we’ve had snow this winter, the current storm seems to be the one producing the most snow. Local talk says up to 10 inches. The day is white. The sky is white. Everything is white.

The best part about this – all the yellow snow in the backyard is covered by a fresh white blanket.

Aside from shoveling the white stuff, I’ve been working at finishing work. The upcoming exhibition at Dickinson State University in March is looming.

First on the list was finishing some bunnies. The rabbits have been a winter project – I was inspired by a rabbit from last fall that was so successful. They are the creatures I make when I’m irritated with my “other” job.

Every time I found myself feeling uber stressed about the other job, I made a rabbit. Let’s turn that frown upside down. Sometimes it worked!

There are real advantages to being an artist and having another job – stability, getting out of the studio, better use of time, steady income, health insurance – and my job is malleable enough to accommodate studio time. But that doesn’t mean that the other job doesn’t seep into the artist job sometimes… and that I get frustrated when that happens.

So I make bunnies. They are a way to be productive in the studio when I don’t have time to tackle the big projects.

Also, when displayed together like on the photo collection above, aren’t they a good example of how no two sculptures are alike? Look at ‘em – same basic design, five different feelings.

Another piece that is fairly near to finished is “Frank” – the sitting, life sized Greyhound sculpture I began November 2009. Frank desperately needs a proper title.