The Sculptor's Stand

[sculpturedolls]

Lynda- How are you doing now? Hope you feel better with all the packing out.

[ArtsyLynda]

I'm feeling better - actually had a fairly good night's sleep last night for the first time since surgery. The swelling and packing I had meant my ears and Eustachian tubes were blocked up, and last night they opened! The packing removed was only the non-dissolveable packing - dissolvable (sp??) packing is in my sinuses and I just have to wait for it to dissolve. I can tell it's doing that by the lessening of pressure, but it's so gradual, it's frustrating. I still can't breathe through my nose at all, although there is some air moving there, so the pressure is better than it was, but I'm still dealing with dry mouth and throat and chapped lips from mouth-breathing. My nose ALMOST looks its normal shape now (it was hugely wide when it had the packing in, and my nose bone couldn't be seen at all - and my glasses hurt my nose, so I went without them a lot, which isn't easy when you're so nearsighted!), but you can see where the splints are now that the swelling has gone down quite a bit. All of this will be worth it if it keeps me from having sinus infections so often, so cross your fingers (and say some prayers) that it works that way!

[sculpturedolls]

Lynda,

Here's hoping it was all worth it for you to do. And hope you can soon breath out of it!

To all: I just got cured of my highly detailed works. What I mean is that it took me some learning to make sculpts that will pull out of a mold well (= mold friendly). Now I'm going to work on making sculpts that foundry workers can chase out in the wax instead of me.

I've been working the wax for over 4 days on my vineyard woman and my larger chaise lady. All the toxic fumes going right in my chest (which I've had a cold on top of it). I'm just soaking up the wax fumes and also the fumes from the lamp oil solvent that I use to smooth the wax.

Didn't get into sculpting to labor at wax sculpting so I definitely need to make sculpts that I feel comfortable having someone else chase out. As for these two sculpts, I could possibly let someone do the wax for the vineyard woman (but then she won't have her decked out long fingernails that I add in the wax and other special touches) but chaise lady will always be one I do the wax chasing for. She has so much that I sharpen in the wax and critique to get everything crisp. She's the one I most want to look like fine jewelry but I'm getting more $ for her too so it's sort of worth it on her.

For my health sake, I need to limit this wax working to just one sculpt and the upcoming sculpts will be made foundry friendly. It just has to be that way because I need to be sculpting in clay not wax all the time and I want to preserve my health.

Just thought I'd share these things. I'd put it on my blog but not sure if it's the sort of thing I should write about for the public to read (but okay for you guys, my fellow sculptors).

~SD

[ArtsyLynda]

Yeah, wax fumes are nasty! I don't blame you for deciding to let the foundry do that work for you once you make more mold-friendly pieces!

My nose has some air moving through it - more than yesterday, yay! Not enough to BREATHE, but now I can TASTE things again! It's all progress, even if it's slow (it's been a week today since surgery - am I impatient or what??? LOL)

[sculpturedolls]

Hey, that's improvement to be able to taste things. Soon you'll be taking deep breaths through the nose.

Cleaned up all the wax off the floor (scraping with a razor blade) in my studio and got all the tools cleaned and put away. Wised up. Next time will buy painter's plastic and throw one of those down on the floor. Also, will work in my garage which is my larger for more disbursement of the fumes. I can open larger windows or the garage door for venting. When done, just pick up the plastic and throw away and I'm half way done with cleanup.

More wax friendly pieces to me means that the sculpt won't have as much detail to go over. When an air bubble is in a sculpt that is tight and detailed, then chances are, that air bubble fix will take that much longer to fix (rather than just blob some wax in it).

If the sculpt is meant to be crisp, then when a wax is poured on the cool side the wax ends up being kind of spongy looking and not sharp on edges. Even if part of the wax is hot and picks up detail strongly, some parts might not be. So I end up going over the whole piece sharpening, incising lines deeper (as they were in the clay) and refining detail.

Overall, my molds are producing very fine waxes but for the reasons above, even the finest wax pours have the limitation that they don't capture sharp detail all over a piece. Therefore, I'll scale back highly detailed areas for just a portion of the sculpt. More impressionistic is what I'll do. Foundries can easily copy that. I won't compromise though. It will still be a sculpt I love and stand by which is important.

Thanks for listening. This is a real turning point for me but a good one too.

Get well soon Lynda! Heal up!

[ArtsyLynda]

Soon I'll be taking deep breaths through my nose??? From your mouth to God's ear!!!!!

It's great you know so much about casting waxes and so on - I sure don't. I've done some of it, but you are miles ahead of me. That's okay, I don't need any more threats to my health than I have!!

Using your garage is a great idea. And if you're gonna do a lot of that, may I suggest a canvas drop cloth instead of plastic? It will be easier to live with when you're working (it won't slide all over the floor when your feet move) and you can just use it and use it and let the wax be absorbed in the fabric. You could use a heat gun to melt the wax off it if you really wanted to (and were careful about it!). I don't like working with sheet plastic on the floor. If I'm carrying something (like a raw clay sculpture), not paying attention to my feet and that plastic slips, yikes!!!

I wish I could change styles easily like you seem to be able to. I tried to do an abstract horse and it became my best realistic horse to that point, LOL! I'm hoping to get back to my water clay pieces soon - I'm feeling a lot stronger, but I'm also staying in my recliner working on the laptop, getting a lot done, but no sculpting. Clay of any kind wouldn't be very healthy for my yellow microfiber Lazyboy!!

Don't you love turning points? They're exciting and scary at the same time, at least for me. I'm always thinking, "Something new, FUN!" and "Something new, EEK! What if I can't manage it?" And those two things make me work harder to accomplish what I've planned! Keeps life interesting, yeah? LOL

[ArtsyLynda]

Hey, Tamara - re Workshops

There's one at Brookgreen Gardens in SC I would LOVE to take - http://www.brookgreen.org/Sergey.cfm The instructor is Sergey Eylanbekov. I don't know anything about him but he's teaching several things I want to work on during the week, and the sculpture they have on his page is just exquisite - makes me itch to re-do the bust of our daughter I did back in 1996. It turned out well, but I didn't build it on an armature that could be shipped, so it's still in plastilene laughing at my ignorance (hey, it was my first year in business, and only my third year sculpting!)

I don't think I should sign up for this workshop until I know when the life-size will be installed in Wisconsin - this one's in mid-April and might be too close to the installation date. I need to check with my foundry about when they think it will be done and installed.

I went to the Brookhaven site to get a URL to share with an Argentine FB friend who vacations in the US every year. I thought she'd like to see the sculpture garden (which I've never seen either). Then I saw the workshops . . . *sigh* I hate it when life gets in the way of dreams!

Anyway - have you ever heard of this guy? Does he have a strong accent so he'd be hard to understand? What kind of teacher is he? Guess I could see if he has videos on YouTube. Off to do that (can you tell I have time on my hands here? Being stuck in my recliner can be frustrating! Thank heaven for my laptop!!)

[ArtsyLynda]

If you look at his work, look at his acrylics - I don't like his stylized bronzes (he has a horse and rider that made me go "EEK!" LOL) but his acrylics sing to my heart - like Frederick Hart's work. I've always wanted to do those . . . a Lucite sculpture we own is what made me really yearn to try sculpting as an adult. (It's a horse piece by Gwen Reardon - "Born of the Wind") http://www.masterpieceonline.com/tit...-CFGH-6E59&bc= There it is! We have #13 of the edition. I've talked with Joel Meisner of the Meisner Foundry, the place that cast the Hart pieces and "Born of the Wind" and a lot of other gorgeous pieces I've drooled on over the years . . .

And while I'm pondering different directions, my daughter is coming up with horse designs (fountains, reliefs, garden art) that tickle my fancy too. If I didn't have so much office work to do for her, I'd have more time to sculpt!!! LOL

Just rambling here . . .

[ArtsyLynda]

I became intrigued with the website Gwen's piece was on and explored it. Now I'm wondering if I should list my work there - probably when I have more diverse work, I dunno. There are equine artists on there I now personally, and I know that one of them, while quite well-known, has never sold anything! She's even done 3/4 lifesize pieces!! She's quite wealthy, and she's a fine sculptor, but her pieces are stiff and "cold" somehow despite (or perhaps because of) their precision. She's far better than I am technically, but people are comfortable with my pieces and enjoy living with them. Hers look like they belong in museums, not homes. I guess there's such a thing as too much precision. Anyway, check out the website and tell me what you think. Getting into galleries is a problem for me - I've had too many pieces stolen, so my hubby doesn't want me involved with them, but I need to move more work! Perhaps this site might help?? I dunno. http://www.masterpieceonline.com/lis...rt.php?index=A Let me know what you think. Maybe I'll save it for when I have figurative or more non-horse stuff to sell.

[sculpturedolls]

Neat to see your inspiration for getting into sculpting, Gwen's sculpture. I like that sculpture a lot. I bet it looks nice being lucite and having light go through it.

Haven't heard of the masterpiece website. Checked it out and so far what I see are a list of artist's names and then a gallery name next to it. I don't see where the list is for artists selling directly without an artist. Because they have so many artist/galleries listed, chances of selling are reduced.

Looks like a great opportunity to take that workshop. Haven't heard of the instructor either. If you can't do it this year then by next year you'll be fired up for it.

I do the same as you as far as when I'm sick, I transfer to getting things done on the computer in my easy chair. Thankfully my new laptop came in just when I got a cold and so I spent time resting (by laying down in my easy chair) and installing everything. Other times I'll spend time thinking up new ideas (like your daughter has been doing) for sculpture and drawing them out.

Psst.... everyone reading.... you can chime in too!

[ArtsyLynda]

Yeah after I explored the Masterpiece website a bit more I came to the same conclusion although they do have a price set for individual artists' listings.

I have so much office work to do, it isn't funny. I need to make a new brochure for my own art biz and build my new website now that my daughter's is up and running. My son-in-law called me the other day and said, "Do you need a job?" and I said, "No, I'm pretty darned busy as it is" - he'd been talking to an engineering company about a project they want him to consult on, and they said they need to build a new website and he recommended me, LOL! Cool thing was, he and I had the same figure in mind for what I'd charge - I told him I'd charge an extra amount per hour if I had to do a lot of editing or creative work past 10 hours of work. And of course, my daughter keeps coming up with more for me to do, yet she wants me to keep sculpting! She's riding with Heather Blitz (potential Olympic team member - winner of Individual Silver and Team Gold at the recent Pan Am Games) in Florida right now and was talking to Heather's publicist. She told Chris (the publicist) that when she hit it big, she'd need someone like her. Then she realized she already had me and I'm doing exactly what Chris does already. I told her I'd told her daddy the night before when she gets a little bigger, she's gonna need a real publicist. LOL Ah well, we're all enjoying the ride so far . . . and I will get back to sculpting when I can get out of this chair!!

[sculpturedolls]

You better stay focused on sculpting or you might end up a promotion lady or a website designer! People love to find things for creative and energetic people to do but then your eyes are divided in their purpose- to do sculpting (oh ya, and writing that you do too).

I liked your advice about the plastic in the garage and how I might think of a canvas drop. Where would I get canvas for that? Fabric store or maybe a army surplus?

[ArtsyLynda]

Army surplus. It would be much too expensive and not heavy enough from a fabric store. You might check Craigs List or eBay too.

Yeah, I get pulled in lots of directions with my creativity. When my kids were tiny, we lived in a different town in Ohio and the Bicentennial was coming. Our church wanted to put a float in the town's parade and I wanted to "help" - I wound up designing and building floats for them for 3 or 4 years (until we moved away) - and we won prizes with them!! LOL When we boarded at a stable on the Air Force base, I thought it would be fun to have a horse show on the grounds -we had everything we needed, including a boarder who was a horse show judge. The stable council said "we can't do that, we've never done that" and I said, "Stay out of my way and I'll do it" (seriously!). I had the 4-H kids come to our house and we hand-made all the ribbons. The show was such a hit, we put on another one later that year, and after we left the barn, they kept having shows and even started a Pony Club and 4-H club there - all because I felt like putting on a show. Never get in the way of a creative person!!! And never tell a creative person something "can't be done" - just get out of the way and watch our dust!! LOL

[ArtsyLynda]

Hey, I got a book on figurative sculpting (not my first by a long shot) - can't think of the author right now, I'll post it later. I liked how he showed a different way to set up the pose - two rectangles of water clay about the same size for torso and pelvis joined by a ball of clay for the core. Then you twist and turn them to match the pose. He builds on a 12" tall galvanized pipe or no armature at all. He says water in the clay causes the kiln explosions, so just fire at 200F for a loooong time and you don't need to hollow your pieces out. I don't own my own kiln, so I can't follow that advice. His method of working is interesting though - he adds clay by pellets or rolls and only uses tools (which I've been told to do for years, but I like to feel what I'm doing!) to sculpt. He uses a wooden block to pound the clay - to join it so there are not air pockets, I suppose. And he uses burlap pounced over the raked surface to give a "skin" texture. He has a chapter showing how to abstract the form, something I've been looking for for years. (Whether I ever abstract anything or not, it's nice to know how to do it!) Gotta have lunch - I'll post the name and author of the book in a bit.

[sculpturedolls]

I want that book too! Can you tell us the name? I love to find books on sculpting. Usually, there is some new point in the book that makes it worth the purchase.