Rock Steady

Old clay:
See Survivor sequence from 2013.

Underwater Yoga

(Clay Exercise:
20-minutes with live model.)

Goddess

Clay Figures: Dancers, Echoes, Dreams

Clay figures:
exercises in 20 - 30-minute increments.

That's Chloe: The Dancer in front
(sculpture mix; copper cobalt oxide; copper wire);
I can't recall the name of the pit-fired dancer behind her.
Maybe I didn't feel I could give her a name, for she has one of her own that she may not have shared with anyone, frankly.

I do recall the exact session at the ASUC Berkeley Art Studio with the art teacher having us work on with a specific model, and then we had to turn and put the head of the person to our left on top of the figure.  Funky exercise.

Such exercises always reminded me of Charles de Lint's stories about Jilly Coppercorn, but specifically about that story in which she's painting from a "pochade box" outside to remind herself about perspective, to remind herself not to get too immersed in the details.  De Lint offers up -- through the character of Jilly Coppercorn -- a quotation from Monet that I've never tracked down (in terms of authenticity, for I trust de Lint) but that I hold dear, allegedly from Monet to Clemenceau at Giverny:

"Your mistake is to want to reduce the world to your measure, whereas by enlarging your knowledge of things, you will find your knowledge of self is enlarged."

And isn't that such a common mistake?

But -- if we want to shift to beauty -- what are those lines from Elvis Costello's "Ghost Train"?

"Look at the way she dances --
One foot speaks,
The other answers."

Lyricism of a different sort than wry puns and such.
______________

Myself: unsettled, or itching to get some work done.
Something like that.
______________

"Hampered by the clothes she wore,
By the dirty looks they kept in store"
--old song circling in my head.

Field of Clay

Update: Wire and Kelp

I like watching the aging process with this fellow.
Merman --
Wire figure: 1996.
Kelped: 2015.

My Old Joe

Closet-diving turns up all sort of things.
Action-figure from long ago.

(Old Joe is older than most of my colleagues.)

The Adventures of Kelpman

Close-up: Kelpman in the surge.

Kelpman:
chicken wire figure (1996);
kelpflesh (2015).
Bodega Bay surge channel.

Crime Scene?

Pictish Warrior?

I've decked out my clay mask (Autumn/Winter) with a leather medieval helmet and a plaid muffler --for the fun of it.

Yearning (Oh, I Miss The Salt and Kelp)

I need to go diving.

(And, to be realistic, this diver would have a camera in his hands, not the speargun, and he'd ditch the tank for free diving.  Well, a tank dive would be fun too.  Oh, and the knife would be strapped to a leg.)

Maybe next weekend--or the one after that.

Eye, Aye: A Medley

Centering

Trickster: Glimpses

Trickster: sculpture mix; brown, black, and maybe shino glazes, blended; copper wire, hammered.

(I've posted shots of this live model exercise at various times in this blog; if you are interested, please use the label-link "Trickster" below.)

Medea: In Clay

Medea: stoneware; transparent brown glazing, layered; copper wire.

I Am Not Stubborn

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

Something like that, right?

Sure.  Tell me another.

Fall Begins

 Tumbler (Pictish): sculpture mix; pit-fired
. . . years and years ago on Ocean Beach.

Live model: 20-minute gestural exercise.

Mendocino Harbor Seals

Harbor seals south of Van Damme State Beach in Mendocino.  Here, you can see the bit of concern in the body language, so I made sure I stayed well back from the creature . . . .

At this point, there were seven or eight harbor seals hauled out or swimming about.  As usual, they kept at least one eye on the paddlers passing through.  The group was good about staying back far enough and moving on.

This next harbor seal looked just like a rock from a distance. I laughed to myself at the seal-shaped rock until I paddled close enough--but not too close--to see the wonderfully mottled creature.

 Okay, this next one doesn't quite count.

Anatomy Class: Full Figures

Here are full-figured shots of the palm-sized clay pieces I featured via partial shots in "Anatomy Class: Details".  There were 30-minute gestural exercises with live models; I probably made these pieces back in 2002 or 2003, at the latest.

Anatomy Class: sculpture mix, unglazed; copper wire; twigs.

Below I offer two shots of each figure with slightly varied lighting.  The different directions of the light source highlights slightly different features of the pieces.

I can point out numerous flaws in each piece, but I will remain silent.  I like the pieces, particularly as three-dimensional documents of my efforts to understand anatomy and clay in combination at that point in time.  I'm posting these shots of old pieces as a prod to self, a push to make that trip to the studio and work a bit.

Anatomy Class: Details

Anatomy Class: Two Figures: details.
Sculpture mix, unglazed; copper wire; twigs.

(I made these years and years ago, and I just found them on a high shelf gathering dust.  I'll post whole shots at some point, but I like focusing on the parts first.)