Monday, July 20th, 2009
It has been an interesting journey over these last three years of reinventing myself as a sculptor after over 25 years as a potter. It is like choosing to move out of the old neighborhood. Life had become the familiar and the movement of the clay between my fingers as it spun on a wheel did not even take thought anymore. And though comforting in its repetition, something inside longed for change…. for something more.
As I look back, I am not surprised that sculpture is my newly found love. I actually wonder what took me so long. When I was in high school, I did an independent project of a life sized paper mache sculpture of a girl combing her hair. Not being able to convince my mom that its artistic merit deserved a place in the front room, it lived out its days in the yard changing with each rainfall. And as I look back on my pottery, sculptural elements were always there… the fancy handle, the tile relief, the wall sconces. But to create something without a functional purpose, or so I thought, was not the practical nature of the potter…. at least not this one.
Then there was the day the light went on…..
As many artists will admit, we do our best work in the shower. More than one “ahh hah” moment has been experienced there by many an artist and that was the case with me on that fateful day when it came to me to sculpt my first figure in clay… just for the sheer fun of it…..
Now it is three years later and I have 21 pieces now cast in bronze and so many more things to say, and I smile to think that I first thought that this work did not have a function. I have come to find out that I tell stories…. stories about the wonderful experience of life. And the way that I feel when I am lost in the process of creating a piece must be the bliss that Joseph Campbell spoke of. I feel truly blessed.