Works in Progress - Hengst Studio

“Age of Dreams”
Work in progress: ceramic figure
8’ x 3’ x 3’ when complete
2025…I hope

The idea for this sculpture comes from a number of streams. The first is the plan to do 12 figures that are struggling to sleep. They would be arranged in a circle. In the middle is a figure who is waking up but still stretching and in a partial dream state. That is what this figure will be.

I am also inspired by the full forms and energetic twisting of Michelangelo’s “slave” figures as well as the physicality and surface play of Robin’s mature work.

I am building this figure at a studio in northern Thailand at the Pichan Ceramic Factory. They have a ready supply of clay and a kiln large enough to fire such a figure.

The first step was to build a cart with wheels sturdy enough to support a 300lb sculpture. The next step was to be sure my “study” was exactly as I want it. Even though it is clay and as such very malleable, due to its size the sculpture must be hollow with walls no thicker than 1 inch. This allows for very little change as one builds the sculpture from the ground up. It is an incredibly rigorous intellectual exercise and a bit of an engineering challenge to have it come together well and without it collapsing under its own weight.

“Seated Man”

Unfired ceramic clay

48” x 24” x 24”

2025

This is the 3rd version of this piece. There will be a 4th piece twice as large as this one which will make it slightly larger than life size. And that was my goal from the beginning. In the photo included here you can see the original sketch and the second version which is about twice the size of the sketch.

The 3rd version, which is featured here is many more than twice the size of the 2nd version. I wanted this version to be big enough to require engineering concerns and large enough for me to work out most if not all the anatomy concerns except of the arms and head.

When a sculpture made of clay gets bigger than about 12” or so it must be hollow in order to be able to fire properly in the kiln. And if it’s hollow it is at risk of collapsing under its own weight while it is wet. Once clay is dry it has a lot of compression strength but still not much tinsel strength. That means it won’t squash under its own weight but it will still easily bend with almost no resistance. And once it dries it will not bend smoothly but it will snap pretty easily, even under its own weight.

And you can not add an armature because an armature can not be fired in the kiln. And even before then, as clay dries it shrinks quite a bit but the armature does not so the piece will crack off and around the armature.

The added challenge is keeping the lower parts of the sculpture wet enough to keep reworking as the piece gets larger and larger.

Initially I rushed the figure too quickly and as a result the “rock” that he was sitting on began to slump causing his torso to pull away from his legs which were melded to the rock on the rock’s sides. Once the slumping began there was no way to stop it and within minutes the torso pulled completely away from its legs and collapsed on to the floor completely upside down.

Since the hips and ass were up, they did not get squashed like the upper stomach and chest regions. These sections were unsalvageable.

But I was able to reuse the hips and ass which helped reestablish the scale and direction of the movement.

I also realized that if I cut a hole in the side of the “rock” I could reach in and place a fat prop right up the middle of the inside of the rock. It was in 2 pieces so that I could more easily remove it once the clay dried enough to support the weight of the torso on top. But having that wooden prop in there allowed me to create the full figure without having to wait for the lower parts to dry. Again, this isn’t about impatience or speed, it’s about allowing to work the entire composition at once while all of the clay is at least a little wet.

It worked. I created the whole piece over the next few days. And when it felt hard enough I carefully removed the prop. Fortunately my timing was good. The figure did not collapse on itself this time.

The piece is now ready to completely dry and fire. When I return to my shop in Chiang Mai I will create the life size piece.

“Crystal Portrait”

Clay

16” x 14” x 14”

2025

This is the second portrait bust I have done of Crystal. This time I decided to make it more realistic and detailed. And I am going to make a mold of it and cast it in various materials.

It is life size. And a striking likeness of Crystal.

What remains to do is detailing of the eyes, nose, mouth and ears. Unfortunately the clay is not dense enough to support fine detail so I need to experiment with adding wax or oil based clay to the piece in order to get the detail I want. Since I will not fire this piece it should work.

“Bust”

Unfired clay in process

30” x 30” x 20”

2025

This is unfired clay. I’m waiting for it to dry and then I will fire it. After that I will break it, put it back together and sand and finish it. I want to take the idea of the broken fragment one step further than the broken relic we find and then display. I want to “break” it with a mixture of intention and accident. Then I want to discover what looks good about it. And I want the gluing back together process to be evident, not disguised. Let’s see how this goes.

Meanwhile, here is a pic of the piece in the process of drying. There are 2 slightly different views. The piece is already has some radical adjustments. At some point after the bust was looking complete in a traditional way, I pealed it off the surface I was working on and plopped it on a big pillow of soft clay. Because the bust was in advanced stages of drying it delaminated in parts from the pillow and large pieces cracked and fell off. These are mostly on the back of the piece. And greatly enhanced the drama of the piece. I also added breasts and these too will likely crack off in the firing process leaving dramatic sharp edges that one simply can not create with tools.

“Figure Study for a Monument”
Various pieces and studies.
Unfired clay
2025

A figure evolved from my sketches of an athletic woman lifting a deflated man( or human sized deflated penis) over her head.
For reasons mostly having to do with limited tools and facility, I decided to do the figure in pieces. Fire them in pieces and then assemble them but without a deliberate attempt to have the parts match and form one elegant figure. In fact, I will deliberately mismatch the pieces and use deliberately crude material to join them together like rapid set concrete and plaster.

The male figure, or penis, will likely be made of sheets of plastic that I melt and paint in garish colors. Here are some of the pieces in various stages of process.

“Thai Grandma”
Oil/panel
30” x 24”
2023-

As of the time of this writing in January of 2025 I have not finished this painting. I started it in the summer of 2023. It still sits in the place where I started it.

I was inspired by a photo I took of my friend’s mother. I was struck by the kindness and complexity of this woman. But I could not see clearly what was really going on. She was concealing something. Or maybe I just didn’t know how to see it. After an hour or so I set the brushes down and never returned to the painting. And yet it is still on my painting deck. Clearly I have not abandoned it yet.

Around this time I also did a series of abstract paintings inspired by the farmland around where she lived. You can see those painting in the abstract section of this website under Abstract 2023. Someday I would like to see these paintings side by side. Maybe it will give me some insight about how to finish it. Or decide it is already finished.