I’ve been experimenting with a new clay that fires very dark chocolate brown. Looks delicious, especially with contrasting underglazes in white, black, and orange.
Homeward Bound
Picked up this lady and five other pieces from Larimar Gallery in Oaxaca this week. They’d been on exhibition since last spring and it was time for them to go home. Glad to see them again!
Cooked Clown
This guy has been through the kiln three times. Each time I”m wildly throwing color on him. He has at least one more to go. I’ll get this right some day! (Actually this is a technique used by some very fine sculptors. I think they mostly work at universities so the cost of multiple firings is carried by the institution.)
Buttoned Up
I discovered I liked making buttons (see Mouse, below), so here are two little charmers with their accent buttons.
Mouse Gets the Treatment
This rather large torso was treated to a barrage of color treatments, including underglazes and copper carbonates and you name it, I threw it on. I like the result. Interesting cause he’s such a grim, impassive character and his surface is so wild.
Trio of Duos
Got interested in making two figures together as one flowing shape. Tried new underglaze techniques.
A Colorful Summer
I’ve been getting bolder with expermenting with color after taking a workshop with Kensuke Yamada. When I was in Provincetown this summer I went to see a sculpture of his installed on the ground of the Truro Art Center. A five-foot yellow man.
Evolution of Birdie
This piece was inspired by an image I saw in the film, Birdie. It struck me so deeply I took a photo of the television screen, and later found the image itself online in a poster for the movie (see gallery below, first image). I first started trying to capture the pose, which to me communicated vulnerability, wishfulness, and even a little danger. To achieve the pose, though, I needed to create a wall piece, as making it balance as a full three-dimensional sculpture was beyond me. But the result felt flat (literally!) to me, and I began to bend it off its base. I opened up the tight legs-to-chin pose, then closed it again. As I worked it in 3D, everything changed, including gender. I think the final image, while far from the original inspiration in many ways, transmits much of that same feeling to me that the original did.
Where this piece ended up.
One Plus One
Lately I’ve been working with raku clay which is very stiff and easy to build up,, quickly. I’ve made several standing figures in twos, figures intertwined in some way. It has been satisfyihg to build up so easily, and challenging to get a two separate figures together, looking interesting from all perspectives.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
The annual art show at Penny Cluse gave the word “Place” as the prompt for any artist who wished to respond on an 8-inch square piece of wood. Kind of a challenge for 3-D art but fun. Between a rock and a hard place was my response to the prompt.
I made the rocks from clay. Then built a head to fit in between the rocks and a plastic “Hard Place” I attached to the side.
And Now for Something Totally Different
This sculpture keeps emerging. If you look farther down this section you’ll see it in various incarnations. This one came out of the kiln and the surface was too dark and just plain ugly. Nothing to do at that point but paint. I really prefer very basic organic surfaces — simple black or brown underglazes or oxides — so this is really out there for me. I’m going to add a gloss spray finish to really go whole hog.
Cause for Concern
She emerged from the kiln on the day Roe was overturned. Her concern is shared by many.
Painted Wings
Fired and painted with underglaze, the winged woman emerged.
Mexico Show
Before I departed Oaxaca last March, I left several sculptures with the Larimar Gallery for a show they were going to install in the coming weeks. The gallery is newly renovated and it looks pretty cool. It’s been so long I forgot what I even left them! Nice to remember and see some of them again. Link above is a little video of the show at Larimar.
Neither Fish Nor Fowl
I like the contrast between the smooth ethereal face and hair with the highly detailed almost agitated wing patterns and the scale pattern on the other side. (You can’t see the scale pattern well at this stage, they will show up once I apply oxides and fire.)
Experiment with Color
I have made a semi-abstract, mostly form-based figure that i want to experiment on with color applications after the bisque firing. The fight was, as always, keeping her as abstract as possible. Adding boobs was a real quandary — I didn’t want to do it, but I just had to. I thought the form called for it. Not sure if it was that or just me veering into figuration.
Different clay, different results
I was surprised at the color this clay turned after a firing of cone 6. I’d used it before and fired to cone 4, which gave a dark brown with red overtones. I lost most of the red overtones with cone 6, but got an amazingly rich dark chocolate brown. Still deciding whether or not to fire to this cone again.
Resurrection
Since I lost the piece ( see Before the Fall below) due to some flaw in my process, or the barro negro clay that I’d ever worked with, or the temperature, or just bad luck, I tried to do it again. Twice. Neither time did it turn out as well as the original. This reddish one below has been fired and surfaces treated. It is about half the size of the original and it is going to be shown in the Larimar Gallery this spring. Below is the one I’m working on here at home in Vermont. It is bigger, as big as the original. I”m using a stronger clay the can stand up on its own pretty well. It isn’t done yet, but it’s beginning to set so I won’t be able to do anything too dramatic now. I don’t want to just copy the original, even if I could. I want to get the feeling of the original, capture the sweeping masses, the strangeness of the heads. Not there yet.
Before the Fall
I made this in Oaxaca a month or so ago, using barro negro, the black clay that comes from the village of San Bartolo. They don’t usually sell their clay to outsiders, so I felt lucky to get a chunk. It was weird to sculpt with — very smooth, little grit or heft, felt a little like working with porcelain. I made a few smaller pieces then this one, that just came out. I hardly remember how I even did it. But it just poured out and was powerful. After I finished hollowing, which was tricky, I set it out to dry slowly. Over a few days I began to see a crack or two developing. Then more cracks. And the following day it had just basically imploded.
Grotesque Series
These troll-like humanoids keep appearing when I start working with a lump of clay. They have a strange pathos and I’m happy to usher them into being.
