It is said that an image can tell more than a thousand words and so does for me this picture above as I try to express the feelings I got involved to during last week.
I had some dizzy days at the studio. I awoke with a lot of ideas, maybe too many of them and when the time to start working got there then all the ideas seemed lazy, non-interesting or too common, boring or just too simple.
It was like looking at the bunch of lamps but none of them was bright enough.
It was Wednesday morning when I checked the shelves where dry works are waiting to go into the kiln and I found out that there were too many of them which weren’t glazed yet and I noticed that I had no clue on how to finish them.
When I started with sculptures this year I promised myself that I will do each piece as unique as possible, even if they look alike because they are in the same pose I decided that they all must have some particularity that make them unique.
The more I did the more I found it amusing.
It was like I was creating something which was alive, and alive ‘things’ shouldn’t be all alike.
The greatness of the living beings is that they have its own way to be, and that is what make them unique, special and worth looking at with new and open eyes.
I’m always expectant to discover what each being will be like every time I meet someone new.
It is with this concept in mind that I create each of my works; even when I have to do the same pose over and over again I try that they express different personalities, you don’t have to look at a sculpture head and be able to predict what it has to tell you.
The more I work on this the more I discover different ways to create new personalities.
I got to work on new pieces with some challenging postures, and it is about some of these works that I felt blocked at that moment, I really wanted to go forward and make them even more special, more unique, I’d like them to be something I won’t get bored of looking at.
Contemplating and evaluating Sculptures
After about an hour of contemplating them over the table I came to the conclusion that the only way forward is to be patience as no good thing comes out of rush; but then there is the anxiety part and the decision taking moment. I think sometimes I fear about taking a decision, however, there I was, deciding to WAIT; but not just sitting there and waiting that things get done by itself, but instead I should use my brain even more giving it a specific direction.
Glaze testing
Later that day I started what I called a loooooong process of try, fail, discover, expectation, getting frustrated, trying again, having luck, trying more, learning, risking, daring, and maybe, starting all over again.
Starting again because it is fun, because that long process is what makes this work so interesting, because as many other things in life, here I am free to try, to make mistakes, and I MUST allow them in order to succeed, in order to learn, in order to discover.
Discover not only the medium I am working with but discovering myself during the exhaustive, but fascinating, creative process.
Glaze preparation and testing. Messed up studio. Burning brain…
Barbara.
