Kato Polyclay with wood, paper, copper foil, gold leaf and silk ribbon.
I love the playfulness and endless invention of marginalia that climb and wriggle about the edges of medieval manuscripts. So, since I had a wee head awaiting a body (or equivalent thereof) I thought I would play likewise...
White Deer Marginalia
She's an 8 inch figure in Kato Polyclay, dressed in washi paper. Hair combing is something Banshees (when they are not wailing, I assume):
Banshee combing her hair
A heavy tanker drops fire retardant while fighting the Flagstaff wildfire on Tuesday, June 26, in Boulder." (Jeremy Papasso / Daily Camera)
There is a forest fire near enough to sting the eyes and roughen the throat, billows of smoke rolling east to be seen looking up our street this afternoon. We here, and the nearby university, should be OK. But there have already been evacuations on the mountain, and for the animals an birds... alas. Best thoughts to those fighting the fire. One of the quite heroic planes.
She'll be a strange little bust:
A piece inspired by the work of Kay Nielsen, whose illustrations I discovered as a small child. In Premier air dry clay, about 14.5 inches tall:
East of the Sun, West of the Moon: girl on a white bear in air dry Premier clay.
“Genuine love is a personal revolution. Love takes your ideas, your desires, and your actions and welds them together in one experience and one living reality which is a new you. ”
~ Thomas Merton, Love and Living
Sonnet XLV
For every lovely ordinary thing
My heart would do with thee apace each hour:
Because these cannot be, Beloved, no bower
Holds that bright true center, and spread of wing
O’er tossing hollows blown doth truer sing
Our tale than nested wren or nightingale's lure;
Let us embrace the harsh high cry, grieved pure
Call of sea bird bowed in wind, and wring
From aerie solitude a liquid silver link
So bright and darting strange that none may sunder
This heart from thine, though tumbling chasm brink
Should yawn between. Thus sleep quiet, wonder
Of the daily round, dear in fading ink,
Whilst Love doth run the racing salt-sewn thunder...
~ Isabelle Rathbone Greene, c. 1894
Another wonderful Russian being. I wanted to present her in the act of melting:
... I think. On the beach with my artist mother Lou, working on a giant sand-toad:
My artist mother, Lou Rogers, and myself on a beach in Rhode Island.
The original Miragaia model in Kato Polyclay, for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History's line. This was taken prior to final approval, as I recall -- some changes were still to be made.
Carnotaurus head, prototype for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History's model dinosaur line.
Carnotaurus head, then underway in Kato Polyclay. For the Carnegie Collection, produced by Safari, Ltd. This photo is considerably enlarged. Note: the teeth had to be deliberately blunted, to satisfy toy safety regulations. Though to my mind, a serious bite seemed improbable!
A section of my interpretation of a fascinating and enigmatic Creature designed by Carlos Huante especially for a workshop with Anatomytools.com. It's in medium hard Chavant clay. I highly recommend Anatomytools, run by sculptor Andrew Cawrse. The two workshops I've taken there have been amongst the best experiences I've had as an artist. The instructors, models and fellow students all inspire.
I aim to continue with this clay, and approach some ideas I’ve not had opportunity to express before. They may require their own Creature page here, as they’ll be of a somewhat different species than any I’ve brought out thus far.
An unfinished miniature in Kato Polyclay -- she was afterwards painted. She'd stand about 8 inches tall in stocking feet. Done listening to Vivaldi. Must admit, all of his Seasons sound wintery to me.
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket -- safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
~ C.S. Lewis
And then there’s social media, of course: