I think it’s safe to say I’m not the most verbal blogger…! But I will endeavour to do better, as this is my last 6 weeks in Pietrasanta. To be honest my silence is largely due to finding one piece I have been working on very difficult to finish, as I mentioned in my last blog. I have now finished it and it is on it’s way to be made into bronze along with two small pieces. This means we have added the sprues and the wax is ready to have a ceramic shell, which is like the mould in which the bronze is poured. I think I have been rather slow about getting to this point, it has been quite stressful and I have given myself a hard time, it has been a struggle to stop experimenting and commit. However now I am back with experimenting and I have decided to make a series of clay heads. I have longed to make something with clay and something that isn’t small scale for a while now. What I really want, is to produce at least one work in bronze that exudes a kind of confidence and I don’t feel I have that in the wax having only really used it for the last 7 weeks vs clay for the past 10 years! This residency has been challenging both on a professional and personal level, I have had to learn to live alone and work in another country in a foreign language. Professionally it’s been an ongoing negotiation to discover what this residency will mean for me and what I want from it, more that what might be expected from me.
Following on from the incredible drawing lesson I did last month I have been using those drawing techniques in my own drawings and in life drawing classes. Working without guidance from Almuth makes is much harder and I have felt myself losing my way but I am persisting and I am now discovering something new, that belongs to me. I am beginning to think that there is something in that one lesson up in the mountains that will impact on my work for a long time. I can’t tell you how inspiring it is. It has also made me realise how important it is to draw in this way, setting aside at least 2 hours a week to draw is really important and utterly enjoyable. Following a life drawing class last week a rather wild artist told me that I ought to have some boundaries, which I thought was hilarious at the time considering the source of this comment! But actually I have mulled this over and I think Almuth was my boundary in the class and without her I wasn’t setting my own parameters. I have started to do this by sticking to a pallet, technique and drawing one drawing per pose and it worked well for me in the class today. I think trying to do too many new things at once often ends up in a bit of a mess. This is my mind-set in relation making these clay heads, if I stick to something I know and the only thing that changes is the transformation into bronze then I will actually learn a lot more. It’s a bit like science GCSE, you are taught to only change one component at a time to get the best results. I think I can safely say that’s the only thing I remember from those classes, apart from…no nothing else.
All my musings haven’t left much room for all the other stuff going on in my life here, so I’m going to give it to you in a nutshell: cycling to the beach, sunshine, espressos, Lucca, Cinque Terre, my Dad visits, foundry visits, bar visits, lots of aubergine, tears, lunches with various artists, BBC, bad literature, Italian lessons, mould-making, skype…
