Memories: Bullish By Night

Old sculpture:
30-40 minute exercise with model?
Years ago, so I am not sure.
Sculpture mix--and overglazed, but I like how that came out.

My stubborn side, you know?

Old Favorite: Bullish By Nature

Minotaur:
Exercise with live model: 2004?

Sculpture mix; overglazed.
I hadn't meant for the glazing to be quite so thick; there are faint features beneath all that blue and gray glossing, but I like the unintended effect, the blurring and enlarging of the head as well as the downward flow, matching the jut of the chin, the slightly slumping shoulders, and the melancholy mood of the beast-man.

The Gang Is On The Way

Soldate clay, still drying.

Welcome to the Labyrinth

Happy Autumn!

Clay mask: 2013
Rudi's apples.

Clay Wizardry

Ornamentation for the yuletide tree: my efforts over the years.

Minotaur, Yearning

Minotaur:

sculpture mix; blue and green glazing.
Model-exercise: 40 minutes?

(Previous entry here.)

At A Gallop

Profile Pics

Autumnal Reprise: Brecca

Minotaurish II

Autumnal Spirit: Bovine

Mask: Bovine For The Labyrinth --

Sculpture mix; celadon, denim, and transparent brown glazing, layered; copper wire.

 Detail:

Njord Rising

Njord: stoneware; floating blue and transparent brown glazing.

Remember The Labyrinth

Minotaur's Head (small): sculpture mix; green and floating blue, layered.

Brecca, Bull From The Water

Brecca in the stream. The air bubbles in his eyes --or are those water bubbles?-- are particularly effective, don't you think?

Luck of the Bull-Man.

Brecca: stoneware; blue glazing.  An old piece, but a favorite one.

I Am Not Stubborn

 Or, I Made This Figure, But I Did Not Model For It.

Something like that, right?

Sure.  Tell me another.

Id Est

CHLOE: detail.

OR . . . 

MINOTAUR: detail.

I miss figure class.

Bull-Headed

Brecca: stoneware; blue glazing.

Hrothgar's Pawn: sculpture mix; deep green glazing.

Talismans of stubbornness? Head-pieces for hardiness and holding ground?

Brecca on Deck

Another "chess" piece: Brecca, the Bull--Beowulf's foe/companion in the swimming match.

I like the wet "planking" beneath this northern minotaur's head.

Hrothgar's Pawn

Here's another piece from the chess set I never finished. A pawn, I guess.

Another minotaur of sorts. Actually, I think of the piece as a Viking faun, if I may mix my traditions. No horned helmet--an inaccuracy, that, anyway--but a horned head. The fierceness and the shagginess call out "Viking" to my mind.

Bullish and goatish both, though not Mediterranean at all: no Cretan sleekness, no Classical spareness here. The severity is rough and textured. Rough weather; rough water. Cold, kelpy seas; the swift shifting of the seasons; dark forests of oak and pine; harsh frost and snow; wolves and bears and boars (oh my). Bear-shirted berserkers, man-beasts, beast-men. What's his lineage, truly?

If Viking goats seem too far-fetched, recall that Thor the Thunder-god's chariot is pulled by two goats. (At least, until trickster Loki lames one of them.) And the sound of those chariot wheels rumbling across Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge of Asgard, makes the thunder we hear down here on Midgard (or Middle-Earth). I like Thor, defender of gods and men against the frost-giants and all things unhallowed. Thor, whose very name echoes the Norse word for "giant" (thurs), always strikes me as the street-cop of that northern pagan pantheon.

My piece: Beowulf's henchman, perhaps, or Hrothgar's pawn. I haven't named him yet. Perhaps the name of one of Thor's goats would suit?

Hrothgar's Pawn: sculpture mix; deep green glaze.

Daedalus at Work

"Aptness to purpose: one definition of beauty." --Ezra Pound.

Or, as a different caption:

THE MYTHS

Italy and Greece lay in ruins,

inhabited by beasts: the Minotaur

in his labyrinth,the scrush of his hide

against its walls; the blinded Cyclops

groping for Ulysses among the sheep.

Dad taught us all the myths.

Up on Mount Olympus

people disguised themselves

as animals. It was like that then.

It's not like that now.

Back then you were half animal

if your father was a god.

--Chase Twichell

from Dog Language