Sculpture

It's been forever since I've done any sculpture. Combination of things, I guess: the pottery business has been too successful, taking up a lot of my time. In the "off season"--between Christmas and Market opening the beginning of April--I've had other commitments: rebuilding a kiln last year, commissions the year before, and so on. I no longer have a gallery to show sculpture in, and my biggest patron passed away a couple of years ago. And I just didn't have any good ideas tucked away.

Burn-out, by any other name?

This last year has been a little more manageable. Yes, I overbooked on pottery shows, took a bunch of commissions. But on the other hand, I retired from my weekly radio gig, gave myself some time to read, sketch, listen to podcasts, only listen to music for fun, not to evaluate for airtime. I started feeling creative again, as opposed to merely productive. And since I got my office work done earlier than expected, after we got back from Wisconsin, I thought I might eke out a little time for a little sculpture. Just a small one…

Sometime last summer, my friend Marjorie told me a story. It was from when she was 6-3/4 years old, on a family trip through Canada. Her parents, herself and her older brother, coming back from Expo '67 in Montreal, stopped at the Granby Zoo in Quebec. The keeper was taking baby elephants to the barn for a bath, and little Marjorie got to ride one of them. Older brother, used to getting to do all the fun stuff while his sister watched enviously, was upset to learn he was too big to ride the elephant.

I remember thinking, That'd be a fun thing to sculpt. So here I am, with a blurry photo from Marjorie, a tablet full of reference photos, a preliminary sketch and a bunch of clay slabs rolled out. Let's see what happens.

Getting back on the… elephant

Spent all morning doing dishes, checking email, running fiddly little errands. Procrastinating, in a word. I remember this feeling from when I was sculpting regularly, all the way back to grad school. An itchy combination of desire and avoidance, with a bit of fear. What if I can't do this anymore? It's been over two years, maybe my skills are gone. Where do I even start?

Well, that's easy. I start at the bottom.

I have a kind of idiosyncratic sculptural method. Instead of slapping around a lump of clay until it looks like art and hollowing out later, I start out hollow and just build the skin. This has some advantages: less clay wasted, faster drying, less likelihood of cracking or, worse, exploding in the kiln. The disadvantage: I have to build in sections, and somehow keep the proportions correct as the pieces come together. Back in grad school, I'd start with life-size reference sketches, pinned to the wall in my studio. Since I'm not sure how big I want to make this piece, I prop up my not-to-scale sketch and dive in.

Slabs are a little wetter than I expect, stickier. I had a torn bag of clay getting stiff during the two weeks we were gone, and thought it was dryer than this. Also, new clay body. I'm not using the same stoneware I used to sculpt with. Still, seems to work out okay. I begin with legs, from feets up to shoulders/hips. Just roughing out forms right now, details like toes and wrinkles will wait until leather hard. (Note to self: Google how many toes an elephant has)

The last time I sculpted an elephant, I used a slab cylinder for the torso, and never got the body to look quite right. This time I make a couple of bowl shapes, one close off and divided for the start of the hindquarters, the other still open for the neck. I cover a board with plastic and set the torso bits waist-down on it, so the edges that need to join together tomorrow will be a little soft. Legs are on a slab of foam rubber. Everything is uncovered; I need to get them leather-hard overnight.

I find myself moving things around before bedtime, turning over the leg quarters, looking for the perfect spot in the studio where everything will dry just enough. Roll out a couple of slabs for the morning. And so to bed.