It’s insane how much work goes into a piece like this! But I’m nearing completion of the individual parts — now to pull them all together. I like the burnt brown patina on the hammered metal eye surround, made from an old aluminum cake pan I got at a moving sale a couple days ago.
During yesterday’s ________ time, I figured out how to make aluminum mounts for glass goat eyes for new sculpture I’m working on.
It’s hard to describe in words the drive I have to __________. First of all, what words do I use for ________??? I haven’t been able to come up with a concise descriptive term for it…I’ll try jotting down some candidate words & phrases, as fast as they come to mind:
free sculpt
follow the energy
experiment/discover
freedom of expression
creative outlet
self actualization
what I’m on the planet for :::Â vocation
positivity
self image, identity, self respect, letting my inner artist out to play
expand vocabulary (of a particular medium) to the max
mastery
see what comes out :::Â be surprised :::Â off the wall
get lost in the *process* of making
let ideas run wild, sidelining the inner critic
suspending the cares of life for a little while, focusing all my energies in a positive/creative direction
Okay, that felt good to walk a circle around the urge and try to describe the salient aspects of it…but I can’t write all that every time I want to talk about “it” in a sentence…and I’m aware that this very act of trying to figure out words is robbing me of time I could be spending doing the actual thing I’m trying to describe, but I’m also aware of the value of putting my motivations into comprehensible form so I can better understand them and align all my inner energies in support of those goals…
I sometimes feel vaguely embarrassed/guilty about the intensity of the drive I have to indulge my inner artist. It seems to be asking for a level of priority that is impractical in relation to everyday life’s realities. It sometimes comes across as wanting to “do whatever I want” all day, every day, which is of course absurd.
It’s really not all that unusual, though; you hear it all the time from musicians, artists, dancers, actors who want to quit their day job and do ________ full time. In fact, I just saw a documentary in which a woman wanted more than anything to be a dancer, and then actually became the principal dancer in a national ballet company, but then got so tired of performing Swan Lake over and over that she quit to do her own thing: interpretive, self-expressive dance.
I deeply resonate with the following as well: In an interview with British artist Nicola Hicks, the questioner asks, “How do you balance life between living, working and loving?” and she responds, “I’m completely useless at it. I never feel I’ve got the paths right. The one thing that is never allowed to suffer is the work, which is a very hard decision to make, but I’ve found that for me that’s the way it has to be. If the studio work suffers there is no hope of anything else working. So other things have to be dropped. (…) All I know is, if you let the work go you have no hope, so there are sacrifices.” (excerpt from Flowers East: Nicola Hicks, The Pale Green Press, 1996 edition, ISBN 1 873362 315)
For the past couple years (up until recently) it’s been a struggle to get *any* free studio time, for weeks/months at a stretch. I chose to let other priorities take precedence. During those stretches, I literally felt like my life was on hold…which made me feel guilty, because I really have a good life! But right or wrong, it *feels* like I’m not truly living when I’m separated from making art (i.e., unconstrained studio time).
I’ve written a fair amount on this blog about the (self indulgent?) seemingly monumental struggle it’s been to rearrange my life just to free up a few minutes or an hour or two per day of unconstrained studio time — in the hope that someone else out there might identify with my experience, and find encouragement to keep on keeping on!
The grand plan — to build up an inventory of finished crows/ravens to free up an hour or two of studio time each day to make whatever I want to make — is working! Crow orders help provide a good ba$e, allowing me freedom to experiment with mixed media sculpture.
Recent “Grand Slam” order on Etsy, for one of every crow/raven design I make! Nice order!
See seeds of ideas for this sculpture a couple posts back. Hand hammered aluminum, one of a kind, available on Etsy (click on image)
No, it’s not a mask, just goofing around…Nearly completed hand hammered metal sculpture to hang on wall…faux taxidermy styleNew goat sculpture in process, I try to add one or two new parts each day. Note handmade copper rivets above nostrils; I can only use them where I have good hammer access to both sides, otherwise I use aluminum blind rivets.Beginnings of new goat sculpture, three or four times as large as previous goat sculpture
It continues to amaze me just how difficult it is to carve out time to sculpt! So many competing demands…each day is like out-of-control whack-a-mole! (But at least I have lots of hammers now  😉 )
On the positive side, it’s *so* encouraging to have my reward (free sculpting time) only hours away (“if I finish these six crows/ravens, and these five errands/tasks, then I can sculpt!”) instead of months (building up inventory of around 150 finished crows/ravens) or years (whole house remodel spanning 2014/15/16). This may be about as good as it’s gonna get…we’ll see…I’ll continue to stave off outside obligations, and continue to find efficiencies in daily tasks, to scavenge as many extra minutes as I can for free sculpture time each day!
