Reprise: Shoulders of Clay

Self-Portrait #47.
Sculpture mix;
green and shino glazing:
live model.

Green Men: Cyrano, Sir Bertilak, Fergus, Amleth, Treece, and Company

Cyrano de Bergerac: A Mask

(sculpture mix; sea-foam glazing)

Sir Bertilak; Or, The Green Knight

(sculpture mix; green house paint)

Fergus: a Celtic Head

Henry Treece's fine historical novel The Green Man, 

a version of Hamlet drawing upon Saxo Grammaticus' tale of Amleth the Dane

Mytho-heroic.

Self-Portrait #53 (wood-kerne and clay).

Profile Pics

Tree-Spirit

The Green Knight?

Bertilak: sculpture mix; green house paint.

Aeschere's Echo

Or, "Field of Confusion"?

Or, "The Woodman's Spectre" or "What the Wolf Left"?

Originally, I called this entry "Who? What? Where?" to highlight the odd camouflaging quality of the shots, and then a number of alternative titles came to mind, as you can see. Finally, on reflection, I am recalling a poignant passage from a favorite medieval poem, Beowulf.

Aeschere, the beloved advisor of King Hrothgar of the Danes, loses his head, literally, and his life, of course, as Grendel's mother's victim in revenge for the brutal slaying of her son. The vicious mere-creature (or devoted, though monstrous mother) mounts the Dane's head on a stake beside the mere in which she lairs, the mere into which Beowulf, the Geatish warrior, must dive to gain vengeance in turn.

I recommend reading the poem in the original Anglo-Saxon, but if that's not possible, why not pick up Seamus Heaney's wonderful translation of the poem?

Shoulders (Brown & White): brown clay; white slip, applied and scored; clear glaze.

I'm not sure what I was trying to do, originally. I probably started making the base for a full bust and stopped at the shoulders. I like that form, not sure why (or, the subject of past and future blogs), whereas I've found that making a full bust puts the emphasis on the head rather than the shoulders. As to the glazing, maybe I thought the scoring would look tribal or would draw some sort of proper attention to the curves of the form. That didn't work out, but now that I'm moved the piece onto this mulch, I am seeing possibilities for future projects.

There's life even in our mistakes, if you keep your eyes open and move stuff around. Now I'm glad I didn't trash these "shoulders" when I was tempted too.

Clay Games Continued

Silly Horse. Next stop: the kiln for the glaze firing.

The neck was too big for the head, but now the new neck may be too small for the shoulders. Getting proportions right takes more practice or more attentiveness than I have at present.

Next step: hair and ears in the right places.

And, below, I think this eye will work, but I am not sure.

Playing with Clay: In Progress