Another mouth study today. This one more open than the others. But I wasn't pleased with it. Wasn't really what I was after, which left me frustrated. Spent the rest of my time today futzing with a panel (painting, not sculpture), but didn't have any of my paints or inks at the studio. Only had white acrylic molding paste and some white pumice powder so I was left to play with texture only. That wasn't a satisfying endeavor either. Finally ended up back with the oil clay head again. More futzing, but still nothing compelling happening. It was just one of those days where inspiration flew out the window and I'm left scratching my head over what to do next. ... blah...

Looked at some art tonight. I went through a bunch of old art magazines, pulling out images of things that grab me visually. I've been doing this for awhile now (a few years?), and like going back to the images I've saved, which I keep in a binder or in folders on my desktop pc. Initially, it was just a way for me to learn about what I liked in art. I really didn't know at the time (talk about a lack of art education). So I started tearing out images from magazines. If something caught my eye and I found myself admiring it, I'd tear out the image and put it in a scrapbook. Nowadays I keep them all in binders -- pages of images I've torn from art magazines.

So tonight was one of those nights.. of paging through a stack of piled up old magazines and pouring over images, thumbing through pages with hardly a glance, trying to find those images that stop me and compel me look again. I found a few, including some from a couple of already-favorites of mine: Cristina Cordova and Jennifer Trask. I love how Cristina's sculptures are emanating an almost mythological psychology. And Jennifer Trask I discovered just the other day in an ad in a recent metals magazine. Very beautiful eye she has. Purely decorative, but her use of materials like teeth and bones and bugs, intermixed so gracefully (and beautifully) with diamonds and gold -- wow.

"... doing without being too attached to the outcome, because the doing is its own outcome."

-- Stephen Nachmanovitch

Thought I would have longer to work today, but was not to be. So here's what an hour can produce. Another quick lip study, smaller this time (and no bottom lip split). Nothing fancy, and again I cannot say just what I'm going after with all of this. But the Nachmanovitch quote above sums up my current work ethic -- it's all about the doing.

Started another new piece. Just lips this time. Pottery (water) clay, once again. I really like the responsiveness. As I was working on the forms of the lips I was moved to split the bottom lip down the center. No reason, really. Just felt like it. Perhaps at a future date the split will be filled with something intriguing? We'll see. I'm not working with any plans at this point. I'm just going with what interests me..

Then I went back to the water clay face I had started earlier in the week. I was a little reluctant to work more on it. Fearful I'd overwork it and it'd end up losing something, but I did it anyway. Just refined some curves and added some realistic subtleties, going for something pleasing. The face, itself, is not very big. Maybe just 5 or 6 inches from chin to forehead.

"Among the welter of material that comes up in an improvisation, we seek to simplify all that doodling and noodling up and down the keyboard and find the answer to the question, 'What is the deep structure of theme, pattern, or emotion from which all this arises?'"

-- Stephen Nachmanovitch

I decided to stop fussing with the oil clay portrait -- the one I've been posting pictures of for awhile now. It had lost it's soul. When I first began it, it was there. But then I got overly concerned with proper anatomy and changed it all around. It lost the emotion it once seemed to carry and became more an exercise in technique than a creative expression (not a bad thing -- it was a good learning exercise, but ultimately was not reflecting what I truly wanted). It was tough to put it aside at first. All that time and effort! But sometimes it's easier to start fresh. Much harder to make changes to something that already has it's structure and bones in place.

For the new piece I decided to go with pottery clay instead of the oil clay. My hand joints were really suffering from the stiff push/pull of the Roma Plastilina. The pottery clay felt so soft and responsive in comparison. Much nicer to work with. I threw all concern for "proper form" out the window and strove instead for a kind of call-and-response work between the clay form and an inner sense of "yes" --

Me and my current anatomy obsession... got a beaut of a skull recently. A new girl for my collection -- a female skull from www.skullduggery.com. Truly an exceptional model. More like a museum specimen than a typical plastic model. In fact, it's not plastic at all. I'm not sure what the material is. Something more akin to plaster or ceramic, which is the only down side. It feels very delicate. I'm sure if it ever got dropped it would shatter into pieces. But I'm not complaining! This skull is absolutely beautiful. I love it. Here are a few side-by-side pictures with my Sawbones skull (on the left). Really highlights the differences.