I am now getting into the life here and as the dust settles I begin to address bigger questions than ‘Where is the supermarket?’ and ‘How many espresso’s can I drink before my heart starts racing (Answer: 3)?’. So now the questions are: How do I use wax? How do I work on this (small) scale? How do I make a permanent work? These questions are fundamental; because I have a love affair with clay, because I work with the figure life-sized and because my work is ephemeral. The ephemerality of the work is crucial; it is really central to my practice at this point (for many reasons I can’t get into now). While this is interesting it is also a struggle to have a practice that only exists for the duration of an exhibition or worse still never even leaves the studio! I make sculpture that should be viewed for ‘real’ not just as a performance or photograph. I am here in Pietrasanta to address this conundrum and so for me it’s not as ‘simple’ as just making a piece of work in bronze…not that it ever is, I suspect. The process and language I have developed is producing some of my best work but also leaving me with a practice that is hard to exhibit and, dare I say, is not economically viable! My job is to now see if I can retain the strengths I perceive and transform my practice.
Admittedly it has only been a week and a half so far and perhaps even 3 months won’t be long enough to address everything. However, I am attempting to push out these concerns and approach them not cerebrally but by working through them. The result: a small battle with the wax has ensued! Before I got here I thought this was an exercise in understanding bronze as a material but currently it is understanding wax as a material. It doesn’t yield to my whim and it frustratingly stays exactly where you last put it! The joy of my work is that it normally falls apart and I have to figure out a way to put it back together. Wax seems to lend itself to smooth surfaces and I want texture… However I will stop here as I vow to no longer fight it but make peace and see what happens…
Another fresh challenge is having worked in isolation for over a year in rural Belgium (as you can imagine there isn’t much else to do but make sculpture!) I am now working in a foundry surrounded by male artisans while I play around with wax. They are very tolerant of my messing around but I feel exposed as a fumble about and make hash of it. I’m sure I can be victorious in the end but my pesky artists ego wants to produce something good and sort of do a ‘ta da’ with a flourish and possibly a silk scarf. It is also hard not being able to converse freely with them about what I want to achieve. Alfredo has been making positive noises in my direction recently and I finally I plucked up the courage to approach him with a model and ask him in bad Italian ‘Do you like this? Why do you like it? Composition or technique?’ he responds by saying ‘both’ which makes me feel pretty chuffed however what he goes on to say is that I am going to struggle to make in bronze because it need to be hollow and some other things I couldn’t understand at all! But it is amazing what can be communicated without too many words.
Helaine Blumenfeld, the Vice President of the Royal British Society of Sculptors (and general star), is the artist instrumental in setting up this residency and (I hope) will be my mentor is arriving tomorrow and I will have the chance to talk to her about my ideas and thoughts. I am really looking forward to seeing her, as she knows my practice already and can be a really valuable guide through this journey I am on.
