I have been working spontaneously in ceramic for about 20 years. One day, I simply bought a bag of clay and decided to start making things. It was so exhilarating at first to watch these interesting beings come to life. Soon into the process, wings were sprouting. I felt strange and a bit silly when I would step away from the finished piece at first because of the connotation of wings on people, the whole 'angel' thing. But when I was making them, there was no judgement, it was like being taken in my this amazing process, where hands and feet and noses, shoulders, all these beautiful passages would appear before my eyes. I would just wonder where it was all coming from and how could it be that i could understand anatomy at least as well as these beings were a witness to.
It is still exhilarating and sometimes I wonder why I let the clay lay fallow for so long. The stone calls me too, the paint and my life outside of my work. And too, the clay will call me when she is ready, because there are times that I try to work when I don't feel the pull of the clay, but I feel that I 'should' make a new piece. Well...it is those times that I think maybe another profession might be in order, because nothing, absolutely nothing will come forth.
During the early years of the work I created 'Dos Angeles'. I decided after I had fired the piece that I would make it a limited edition bronze. The photo you see up top is that piece. What I didn't understand in those early years of bronzing is that you'd better have it exactly the way that you want it before you send it to the mold, because you are setting yourself up for a bit of hell, which I did, if you want to change it much after it is in the wax. Well, this piece I added to and moved the wings a bit, so that every time a new edition would come out of the wax room, I had set myself up for 30 hrs of work, 10 times the amount of time that I had spent on the original. So, this year I had ordered another bronze and changed it so very drastically that I had them pour a new mold. I will show you that piece in the wax in the next post.
