Started working again. Long hiatus. Went another route with investing and felt myself dying a bit. Had to get back to the clay or stone. Decided to finish a piece that has been sitting on a turntable in front of my eyes day after day. Finally went after it. But what was happening is that I knew that I had to make a new piece. In my impetuous and seize the moment way, I grabbed the clay and started making a new piece. Not enough light inside. I pulled the sculpture stand out in the cool, sunny day and hungrily went after it. Simple, simple, I kept telling myself. Stop the details. What is here? What am I supposed to know? What is this piece. The clay and I worked together and I kept pulling myself back to the creation of it. Trying to keep my mind out of it and let the piece be what it was aching to be. It is simple. It is male. It is winged . And of course it is in some sense troubled, but thouroughly present and in ways unsure of what is next but fulling present in the moment. I stayed with it, trying to hear, trying to not make it pretty or perfect in a realistic sense. But more to stay with it as a encapsulated moment and also as a form that felt to me worked from all angles. Not just the working of it being anatomically correct, because it isn’t, but I believe when I stepped away that it worked as a whole. In the end I realized that from one angle it seems as though the head is facing one way and the legs are facing exactly the other. I thought about changing it, but to me it worked as a form and a feeling and then I realized that as always my work was my journal and today what it told me is exactly where I am. I have been looking one way, but I am now going another and in some way I am still moving in two different directions and I need to make a choice.
Monday, April 23, 2007
choose a direction
Started working again. Long hiatus. Went another route with investing and felt myself dying a bit. Had to get back to the clay or stone. Decided to finish a piece that has been sitting on a turntable in front of my eyes day after day. Finally went after it. But what was happening is that I knew that I had to make a new piece. In my impetuous and seize the moment way, I grabbed the clay and started making a new piece. Not enough light inside. I pulled the sculpture stand out in the cool, sunny day and hungrily went after it. Simple, simple, I kept telling myself. Stop the details. What is here? What am I supposed to know? What is this piece. The clay and I worked together and I kept pulling myself back to the creation of it. Trying to keep my mind out of it and let the piece be what it was aching to be. It is simple. It is male. It is winged . And of course it is in some sense troubled, but thouroughly present and in ways unsure of what is next but fulling present in the moment. I stayed with it, trying to hear, trying to not make it pretty or perfect in a realistic sense. But more to stay with it as a encapsulated moment and also as a form that felt to me worked from all angles. Not just the working of it being anatomically correct, because it isn’t, but I believe when I stepped away that it worked as a whole. In the end I realized that from one angle it seems as though the head is facing one way and the legs are facing exactly the other. I thought about changing it, but to me it worked as a form and a feeling and then I realized that as always my work was my journal and today what it told me is exactly where I am. I have been looking one way, but I am now going another and in some way I am still moving in two different directions and I need to make a choice.
