Week 4: Coming Full Circle

Life's Potential, close-up

 My blog and my collection have come full circle.  The first blog I posted about the new collection was Week 18: The Slow Burn (May 28th) and it was this very piece, now entitled Life's Potential.  In that blog I discussed the conceptual process that went into this piece before and while I was building it.  Now, three months later I am happy to say it is finally finished.  The torsos sit on a antique french bottle dryer on a stand I welded.  Each candle was individually made (no molds were used) and after the pieces were fired, both the candles and torso were treated with encaustic to create a deep wax finish.  All of the globes were painted and also treated with wax.

The torsos are tied to each other with a harness brace (made of clay) I modeled after an antique back brace I have in the studio, indicating they are two halves of a whole. Also, each figure has vintage millinery feathers on her head.  I have used these feathers often in this collection not only to serve the purpose of a headdress, but also to reference the human need we have to possess what we can't have.

Life's Potential

The building/assembly time for Shadow Circus is just about come to a close, which is both exhilarating and frightening.  Everything I have worked on for the past year and a half is before me.  Now it is time to send the pieces off into the world (specifically, to the Marietta/Cobb Museum of Art in Marietta, GA and The River Gallery in Chattanooga, TN).  I am proud of what I have been able to accomplish both technically and conceptually and feel so blessed that I am able to share my work with others.

And I just want to give out a huge shout out to the wonderful artist who photographs my work, David Gulisano.  He has endured the onslaught of ceramic figures I have brought into his studio and patiently waited as I painstakingly put together each piece...and then asked for alternate shots.  Thank you Dave! You make my work look great!! (Of course, all of these are from my husband's iPhone and clearly not from Dave's!)

The master himself, Dave!