Sculpture, 2005-2021

Salome
Wax and wood
12” x 12” x 12”
2021
 
I am fascinated by the Biblical story of Salome for lots of reasons.  Some of those reasons are somewhat predictable.   But there is one reason that I think is a little unique.  
 
The somewhat predictable reasons are that it is a story of the power of female beauty over some things, but not everything.  Salome is able to control Herod who is a man of political ambitions.  But her charms are ineffective against John the Baptist, a man with deep spiritual ambitions that not so incidentally are about his humility despite his obvious power.   John doesn’t even have noble blood or political position.  
 
The juxtaposition of female beauty, lust and physical violence have been portrayed over and over in every art form.  Some notable examples from modern times are are worth mentioning: Gustav Klimpt’s painting and an etching by Picasso.  
 
But I am also interested in this story because it is one of the more Greek like stories from the Bible.  This is a stretch and probably a gross over simplification but Ancient Greek stories often have a mythological or archetypal quality about them.   They are broad in scope and rarely have the particulars of individuals in gritty real life situations.   Bible stories, on the other hand, are to me more psychological with lots of individuals in complex almost modern like situations compared with the Greeks’ grand sweeping situations that are as mythological as the characters.   
 
The story of Salome is rich with psychological polarities and nuances.   But it also has almost over bearing archetypal characters where their roles and their very beings are almost bigger than life…bigger than an individual.   But not quite.   John the Baptist is just a powerful man.  He is not Jesus, a half man half god being.   And Salome is a woman.   A powerful and sexy woman, but a woman nevertheless, not the daughter of Athena or something like that.  
 
This is interesting in ways that are more than academic for me.   The story carves out interesting territory in story telling that is under explored and perhaps just right for our times.  I don’t have grand ambitions for this little sculpture.  Unlike other small sculptures of mine, this is not a study for something bigger.  Oh, someday I would love to have it cast in bronze.   But it doesn’t need to be any bigger.    
 
In the meantime, I will explore this middle ground between myth, with its long arch and broad sweep and the individual, with its gritty real life details, in my drawings and paintings.  The speed of these mediums is better suited for this fast moving middle ground.   The issues might be sexual power vs. spiritual conviction or the difference between gifting and purchasing or any number of other ways in which life can quickly become way more complicated than it would seem and where the poetic insight of an artist may be lead to a life changing epiphany or just simply be entertaining.   

“Dry Fountain”
Sandstone
48” x 20” x 14”
2021

There is a semi abandoned stone quarry near Seattle called the Wilkeson Quarry. In its glory days it was used to supply stone for government buildings. But it fell out of favor at some point and now squeaks along selling slabs for commercial projects. I have bought a few stones from this quarry over the years and always fantasized about buying the whole quarry one day. There are so many creative possibilities there.

But alas, I just go there once in a while. Dream at the possibilities, buy one or two pieces I can lift myself without special equipment and drive off.

Here is a piece I did very little to when sculpting it. There is a semicircular bowl at the top and I removed a few layers of grey stone to reveal the streaks of brown. And that was about it.

“SARS-CoV-2”
Terracotta
2021

I am writing this in March of 2021. The pandemic is beginning to show signs of ending as we pass the one year mark since it began. During this past year I did not paint or sculpt any figurative work that was about or a response to COVID 19. Arguably my last couple of abstract pieces were an emotional and intellectual response to the mode and spirit of the past year.   But until now there has been no deliberate attempt to do anything figurative of or about COVID 19.

Every Thursday night since last summer a woman named Crystal comes over and models for me. Initially, I painted some portraits of her. But eventually I started sculpting her. At some point I started doing bozetta of her in low fire clay on a scale about the size of Barbie dolls.  These were usually done in about an hour or so. And I never returned to these works to refine them after our meetings.

Almost every Thursday, Crystal would leave at 8:30 and I would go off to the grocery store for some fresh air and food. When I returned I would eat at my desk and stare at the piece I had just created. I would make a few adjustments and then go to bed.

These bozetta are accumulating with no particular vision of what they are about. Last night I returned from the grocery store, plopped in my chair to eat and stare at my new creation. It was at that moment I realized I had at last inadvertently created my first real COVID piece.

It is often said that we are what we eat. As I sat there eating and looking at my piece I thought, maybe it’s also true that we are what other people eat. In other words, maybe we are more interconnected than we realize. I always interpreted that phrase to mean something more like our health is dependent on the quality and kind of food we eat. And so, maybe I should give more thought to how the quality and kind of food other people eat affects me.

But as I stared at this piece a little longer I began to wonder if we are shaped as much by the way we treat the creatures and plants that become our food as by the quality and kind of impact that ingesting them has on our bodies.

And so I stared a little more. And thought about how and to what degree we become one thing or another by the way we judge or evaluate others’ behavior and relationships to their food, my food, all food. And by that point I am almost full circle. Back to simply being hungry and simply eating.

But am I simply back to where I started? I prefer to think not. I prefer to think that this thought journey was useful. That mindfulness is not simply a symptom of privilege. That it will yield less suffering for others and the plants and animals we eat as well as for our loved ones and strangers. But it’s a slow process.

The sculpture is a woman. But is she. As I sat looking at her I realized that I had shaped her upper body to look more like a bat than a human. Is she in fact a bat? Or a woman becoming a bat? Is that why I instinctively wanted her leaning back over the edge, like a bat preparing to rest as they do hanging upside down from the roofs of caves. And then I thought about Cov-2 and COVID. It came from bats didn’t it? From the increasingly over crowded places bats are forced to squeeze together in. And they are hunted and eaten by many people throughout the world. How could anyone do such a thing? And then keep them alive until the last minute where they are butchered and eaten. Who are these people and who does such things?  How can my judgement propel them away from me and thereby protect myself from them? Judgment keeps me clean! But Is that working? Am I safe if I judge and wall myself away from such messy complications?

“SARS cov-2 comes from bats” we heard from every corner this past year. And those bats and bat eating people are in China.  It’s the “China virus,” they screamed.

But did it? And if so… Okay… Now what? Saddle up the scape goat with as much blame and unresolvable vitriol and send it out into the wilderness of problems too complex to be resolved easily and without deep self reflection. Trot them out in one liners and catchy denigrations. So much better to not have to see ourselves… except as hapless victims of other people’s transgressions.

Is this a woman… or a bat? Is it a woman becoming a bat… or a bat becoming a woman? Is she lying back to rest the way bats sleep upside down? Or is it just a coincidence? It’s just a woman laying back over the edge of her modeling Dias.  

Or is it?

“Clench”
Unfired Clay/Wire
12″ x 8″ 12″
2021

Like so many other pieces done around this time, this piece was inspired in part by my good fortune to have my friend Crystal come to my studio every Thursday evening to model for me for a few hours.  From the beginning of our friendship, the intention was to have her model for me to create life size or larger sculptures. Well, 2 years later we are still making table sculptures like this one. And while that is admittedly a little disappointing, it is still very rewarding to work with her and I have prepared well for larger work.  
 
The intent here was to create tension in a seated figure. Because I used copper wire to help hold the piece together I can not fire it. However, I was able to soak it in epoxy resin to help harden the clay.  And the protruding wires clearly add to the tension of the piece.  Quite frankly I’m not a fan of carefully detailed sculptures of any size but particularly of small works. They end up looking like dolls to me.  Nothing wrong with dolls, but I would describe dolls as being for amusement or pretend play…both wonderful and worthy activities. But with sculpture I am trying to get to something deeper in the experience of being human as expressed through the body.  It’s somewhat counter intuitive but in order to get to deeper awareness I need to distort, twist and minimize the accretion of mundane facts.  I have always wondered if “reality” and “awareness” depend to some degree as much on dissolution as revelation.  Or maybe it is the simultaneous movements in both directions?  This little sculpture is one little exploration of those kinds of questions….more than an attempt to create a miniature version of my friend.  

“Woman”
Sculptor’s wax
14” x 3” x 3”
2021
 

One would have to be living under a rock to not have some baggage associated with being a white male and making a sculpture of a black woman at this time.  And, to some degree, I do….live under a rock.  Among the many other privileges I enjoy is having an amazing studio in a spa run by capable people allowing me the freedom to devote large chunks of my time to making art with no intent of financial remuneration. In actuality, it’s more like being self exiled in a cave than living under a rock.  
 
Yes, I worked my ass of to create this reality.  And yes, it would be a living hell to many of my peers since I still don’t own my own home and at 61 I still have no financial security for my rapidly approaching elder years.   And I hardly go anywhere.   Still, I know I could not even have this perch without some of the silent advantages I have had just by being who I am at this time and place.  
 
But none of that really has anything to do with this piece, why I created it and why I think it’s so awesome.   I created it because I have always admired Michelangelo’s David and wondered if I could create something as singular, balanced and powerful with a totally different kind of human.  
A few years ago I had a Black lover.  I always admired her poise and the tought power in her form and “style.”    While I don’t have the advantage of being able to look at her nude anymore, her form is etched in my mind and is the basis for this piece.  
 
My hope is to find a large log that is big enough for me to carve her out of a single piece of wood 11’ tall.   I want her to be monumental without being gigantic.  
 
I am also hoping that in 25 years or so we will have evolved to a point where no one gives a shift if the artist was white or male or left handed or bald or preferred latte’s over cappuccino.   The power and magic of this piece is not in its political or social positioning.   It is in the grace and balance under pressure that come straight out of a long line of sculptures going back through Rodin, Michelangelo and the Ancient Greeks.   It’s not the realistic details that make this piece worth enlarging ….although they are nice.   It’s the proportions, the balance…the design.   These are principles based on mathematic proportions.  And as such they are about as close to a timeless and universally experienced sense of balance and fullness as I could muster.   If I do my job right, no one will think this is a woman…or a Black woman for that matter.  They will be awed by the fullness of its humanity and hopefully be speechless, empty of judgement and instead full of joy.  
 
If anybody knows where I can acquire a large log at least 12’ long and 3’ in diameter please let me know.   I could not be more ready and I’m running out of time. 

“Reclining Woman”
Unfired Clay
20” x 6” x 6”
2021

Sometimes the photograph of a sculpture is a better work of art than the sculpture. I think that’s the case here. I photographed the piece on the pedestal where I created it. It is an early study of a woman who I have now worked with steadily for 2 years. Most of our sessions result in work I’m really excited about. But not always.

The intertwining of her long legs culminating in the abrupt thick volume of her upper torso with no head looks powerful and effective in the photograph. In real life it looks a bit like a twisted Barbie doll. Too long in places and too short in others. It’s hard to say what is causing the photo to be more evocative than the actual art….maybe it’s the flattening affect of the stark lighting against the aggressive curves of the silhouette. Or a maybe the scratching red marks on the wall create a tension with the figure. Who knows.

Recently I put this piece on display in one of the lobbies of my spa just to torment me. And it works. Every time I see it it makes me want to smash it and create something better. I haven’t smashed it yet, but I have created many much better pieces since this one.

“Jenni as Museum Piece”
Clay, steal, wood
18” x 14” x 14”
2020
 

The title is a clue to its intention.   After sculpting the piece and making a mold from it, I cast a few pieces.  Then the mold fell apart.   The original art had all the marks and scars of the mold making process.  These marks added to the impact of the piece.   The conventional thing to do after making a mold would be to toss the original.  But I have always seen making molds and casting pieces to be part of the creative process including what is left of the original work.  One reason I feel this way is that my molds are always “homemade” with basic materials which allow for a lot of my spirit and chance to imbue their impact on the piece. 
 
Finally, the way a piece is mounted and displayed has also seemed like part of the “making of the art.”    In a way, the minimalist cubes of Donald Judd would not work as art if they were not displayed the way they are in exhibitions.  In an extreme sense, if tossed on the sidewalk along with some garbage bags and irregular sidewalks, Judd’s work would simply be lost or misconstrued as simply more urban clutter.   Welding the support, spray painting the plinths….these were inseparable from making the clay part, more conventionally thought of as the art.   In the same way that Judd must have felt he was still in the creative process when deciding that his pieces needed to be displayed in the way that is now inseparable in our minds from the pieces themselves.  
 
Some art is more durable than others.  But that doesn’t make it any better or worse.  Like Judd I am picky about how my work is displayed.  Perhaps I’m not as demanding as Judd is famous for being.  But then again, my art is probably more flexible in that it will still be experienced as art in a greater variety of settings.  Judd’s work is at risk of being misconstrued as furniture at best or simply a perplexing nothing at worst if it was anywhere just outside the carefully prepared arrangements in very carefully select environments.    Mine is at risk of being misconstrued as decorative fluff.  I’m not sure which is worse.  But artists worry about such things.  I suppose no matter what we do one man’s fluff is another man’s box. 

Female Torso
Cast plaster
20 x 6 x 6”
2020

It’s hard for an artist who came of age when I did to say this is a plaster caste without wincing in shame just a little.  You see, plaster casts of the great classical sculptures from the Ancient Greeks on up to the 19th century were included in the great museums and every self respecting art school had at least one somewhere in its classrooms.  These relatively inexpensive casts were used to assist artists in learning how to draw but at another level they were used to communicate the cannon of what was considered “great” or “important” art.   

The canon of Western art came under fierce attack with the advent of modernism towards the end of the 19th century as artists and all kinds of thinkers began to question the legitimacy of the very idea of a cannon much less its imperialist and white European dominated perspective.   Yes, 120 years ago forward thinking artists were already seriously railing against the hegemony of the negligence that the cannon had exhibited by not taking more deeply into account the power and majesty of non European art and just simply more individualistic ways of making art.  

It took awhile, but eventually the art academies collapsed and disappeared and the Boards of most museums relegated their classical plaster castes to the attic or basement.   Some were even defaced or damaged intentionally in the process.   In fact, so much was this so that by the time I came of age around 1980 “plaster cast” became a kind of buzz word for art that was hopelessly old fashioned or dogged with politically incorrect stigma.  Even the material, plaster, was a taboo material.   

Ironically, over the last few years, the plaster caste is making a comeback at major university art schools and museums.   They are being sought out by a young group of artists who have grown weary of the over zealous individualism they have witnessed in their older peers and their struggle without any guide posts.  But they are wanting to use the plaster classics in some creative new ways.   They are using them as a kind of tonic alongside their own work or more famous contemporary artists.   These have yielded fresh visual experiences and new ideas the same way making something traditional for dinner pairing it with something unexpected or switching up the ingredients might excite the menu and lead to whole new ways to cook something.   

So there is a lot of baggage with plaster.   But above and beyond all that, I love it.  It’s cheap, easy to make, easy to cast with and easy to sand and carve.   It is also easy to paint or alter once your art is finished.  

In the case of this piece, I made the original art in clay.  Clay is great to sculpt with but it is very fragile unless it is fired in a kiln.   This piece is too thick and has a wooden armature inside so it cannot be fired.   So, I made a quick and inexpensive “piece “ mold out of plaster and then cast it in plaster. 

Now the piece is plaster.  I can sand and detail it as much as I want.   Then, if I want to make additional copies I can make what is called a production mold that will allow the piece to be cast many times with very little clean up labor to be done after each cast is unmolded.  

Below are some pictures of this process.  The “piece” mold is very fragile and meant to get one cast.   However, I intend to use its fragility as a creative opportunity.   The second and subsequent casts will fail and yield interesting results that can be more powerful than the intended piece.   Let’s see what happens. 

“Large Bozetta: Crystal seated”
Terracotta
10 x 10 x 10”
2021

My bozetta’s are getting larger. The first 20 or so were about 6” square. Now they are about 10” square. This was a conscious choice. And it is satisfying to be in control of the scale.

I am curious to see at what scale the figures will be big enough to add extremities and heads and finally heads with facial expressions. There are many reasons I don’t include those elements in works like this and on this scale. One of those reasons is that I simply can’t make tiny hands and feet. And I am not compelled to develop that skill. Moreover, I think tiny hands and feet would diminish the direction of the pieces development which needs to emanate from its core.

“A Study For My Own Medici Chapel”
3 Sculptures and a stone
36” x 6” x 14”
2021

This is an idea for something truly grand. Maybe someday I’ll get to create it. A long time ago Michelangelo spent a disproportionate amount of his adult life creating a funerary chapel for his patrons and arguably some of the most powerful people in Italy at the time, people who played a big part in the way we do banking and accounting now, the Medici family.

What is most striking to me about the chapel is the way the sculptures interact with each other. It is paradoxically dense and sparse. The individual pieces are so striking but the sum of the parts is far beyond simple math.

What I have set up here is less complex but still relies on the dialog between the individual pieces. In the center is a highly finished study of a singular female nude. On either side of her is a figure that appears to be female emerging from or taking shape within the muck that she is made of….her gender no more defined than her humanity.

The space between them was deliberate…..roughly the length of the height of the central piece. The stone slab that connects them was just a random piece of stone that I had. But if I were ever to create this piece at scale the dimensions of the slab would be important and based on other aspects of the grouping so that the piece had a sense of order. The slab ties them together in a way that simply arranging them on the floor would not.

“Barely Held Together”
Unfired clay. Brass wire
14” x 10” x 10”
2020

It was the year of Covid. Nobody knew what was happening. We were tense. And barely holding it together. When I made this piece I had intended to make a mold and cast it. And since it was not my intention to fire it, I inserted wire to help hold it together while I fashioned it. But it dried too quickly and cracked. Pieces fell off. And as a result the piece took on more expressive power. In hindsight, it actually expresses the frozen anxiety that characterized how many of us felt during those uncertain times. And so I left. Raw, unfired, fragile and on the verge of falling apart. Strange, but it’s physical weakness is the key to its emotional power.

“Crystal portrait”
Cast concrete
14″ x 14″ x 14″
2020

Crystal is a woman who offered herself as a model to me in the summer of 2020. After discussing what I was looking for she began visiting my studio Thursday evenings. Initially I painted a portrait of her as a way for us to get to know each other a bit.   

However, I soon started working on a simple and straightforward portrait of her in clay.   After a few visits I felt the piece was complete.   So, I decided to make a waste mold so that I could cast one piece in a more durable material.  Firing the clay sculpture was not possible because it was way to thick to fire.  

A waste mold is usually made with a material that is at one and the same time firm enough to endure the process of unmolding the original art as well as casting the replica piece. Plaster is often used.   It’s also inexpensive and pretty easy to do. So I covered her head in a 2-3” layer of plaster. Then, I dug out all the clay original. This left a “negative” of her head inside a thick shell of plaster.   

Then I cast the head in concrete.   In order to speed up the process I decided to use rapid set concrete. This turned out to be challenging since the concrete was setting up even as I was dumping it into the mold.  This caused a number of irregularities that turned out to be part of the success of the piece.  

Once the concrete was completely set I chiseled away the much softer plaster mold.  I was able to preserve chunks of the mold so that I could do partial casts of the face. I have already created one squeeze cast.   This is a process whereby you squeeze soft clay into the larger chunks of the mold.   After the clay is squeezed into the mold you can wait a day or so and then carefully remove the clay from the mold.   Once this dries it can be fired.  

This whole process of making molds and then experimenting with different methods while constantly re-using and re-thinking how materials and pieces can be used to create new things is very exciting.  

I have included a few photos below to give you some idea of what this process looks like. 

“Figure Study”
Unfired clay
10” x 10” x 10”
2020

A “bozzetto” is an Italian word for a sculptural sketch.  There is no word in English for this other than the generic “sketch.”  Therefore, this Italian word is often used in the world of art to describe something an artist made in three dimensions that is the equivalent of a sketch where the idea is just beginning to take shape.   This is distinct from a “model” which among other things is also used to describe a small sculpture that an artist creates that will be used to look at and even take measurements from when the artist is creating the final work in the intended design, presumably much bigger.   The “model” is usually very finished looking and in the old day’s was used to secure a commission.   

An artist will often make a small model of the intended piece to work out as many details of the composition and anatomy at a scale that is manageable, malleable and has few consequences.   This “model” is then quite literally the stand in for the live model during work on the much larger piece.   Large sculptures, especially ones in stone take enormous amounts of time and are usually very messy or done outdoors.   In either case, they are very challenging conditions for a live model.   So the small piece becomes quite literally the model for the artist to look at when working on the large piece.   

This little piece is an initial idea for a sculpture.  I was working with a live model when I created this.  But I had no previous idea about what it would be when I started.   It took about 20 minutes to create.   It was done at the end of our 2 hour Thursday session when I had finished my work but we still had a little time left.   

I like this piece because there is a dynamic balance between the fullness of the forms, a distinctive line and surface marks as well as irregularities.   This “unfinished” or sketchy quality often has some of the freshest and most vital feelings that are more difficult to convey in a larger more conventionally “finished” piece.   
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“Hand Studies”
Unfired clay
Life size
2020

I created these hand studies to prepare for creating life size or larger sculptures of figures.  My intention is to work in concrete which will require working very fast.   There is a short period of time between the time when the concrete does not slump under its own weight and when it is too hard to manipulate.   So it will be important to have a fresh understanding of the anatomy but also some models sitting around for me to look at in the heat of the moment.  

These are unfired clay. They are very fragile. Unfortunately they can not be fired because they are too thick and have a wooden armature. Perhaps I will make molds of them and cast them in plaster. 

“Study for ‘Couple’”
Unfired clay
12” x 4” x 4”
2010

This is a small bozzetto.    My intention is to carve these figures in stone life size.   The drawings on either side below are near life size sketches of the figures from two different view points.   The back sides of these panels feature 2 more views.   

The magic of this piece will hinge on my ability to convey the figures interdependence on one another.   I want the figures to be both complete in and of themselves as well as deeply connected to each other.   Since their faces will be mostly blocked from view this will need to be conveyed through their postures and the way their bodies lean on and simultaneously support each other. 

“Male and Female Torsos”
12” x 6” x 6”
Sandstone
2009
 
Those tiny sculptures were carved as a gift for a husband and wife who offered financial support to my bistro/theater experiment. 
 
The sculptures are carved from a type of sandstone that is quarried near Seattle. It is called Wilkson Sandstone. 
 
I have held big ambitions for this stone since I discovered it in 2000. It is fragile and beautiful. It also lends itself to those dual concerns I have in painting; volume and form on the one hand, and nature’s own forces including decay and entropy on the other. 
 
These little dashed-out torsos were intended to be “studies” for large-works.