I have spent the last few days reconstituting the clay
that went into Annabelle’s life-size reclining figure. It is the same clay that
I have used for all my sculptures over the last twenty years. With lots of
pummeling and wetting down it can be made workable time and time again.
With the last ball of clay I made this sketch of
lovers embraced. Its diminutive size (no more than 8” x 5”) and time taken in
the making (no more than a couple of hours) belies the strength of the
statement that I have attempted to make.
The 19th century French sculptor Auguste Rodin
was the master of the clay sketch and also the master of lovers embraced. Art,
he said, is nothing but a sexual pleasure…a derivative of the power of loving. By
way of his team of assistants he sometimes enlarged his sketches to
life-size.
But a sketch is best when left well alone; it’s very
lack of finish is the finish. Let’s hope that tomorrow I’m not tempted to destroy
the spontaneity of today’s work by making too many “refinements”.
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