This little gargoyle sculpture was commissioned by a friend who raises Havana cats, which are these amazingly lean, long-legged cats with rich brown coats and striking green eyes. I hope I did them justice.
Category: art
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Loki has a favorite ball. It’s a red ball that flashes light when it is moved, jostled, or nudged. My cousin, Donna gave her this ball many years ago — at least 8 or so. We’re all amazed that the flashy thing inside still works.
Loki doesn’t really like playing fetch. She has her own way of playing ball. She gets the ball of choice, runs up to the human she has decided needs her attention, and growls menacingly. This is her invitation to the human to try and get the ball. As you go to take it from her, the pitch and volume of her growl grows and she does her best imitation of an attack monster-dog defending her young. If you back off or try to ignore her, she will continue to close in, eventually nudging your hand or dropping the ball in your lap while continuing to growl with gusto, as if to say, “stupid human, you are supposed to grasp the ball with your hand and pull on it while it’s in my mouth. Hasn’t anyone taught you how to play?”
Sometimes she will go to a spot in the room or out on the deck with the ball or other toy in her mouth, sit facing the humans with the hope that they will notice she wants to play. If they fail to notice after a certain amount of time (say, a few minutes), she will drop the ball with a sigh and stare at you with the saddest look I’ve ever seen on the face of a most well-loved dog.
So, I sculpted Loki waiting with her ball. She’s done in red, outdoor sculpture clay with a pigmented wax patina. It doesn’t do her justice.
I’ve entered her in a juried art show and I really hope she gets in. I also hope to get up some better photos of the piece to put up on Flickr and my website. But for now, here’s Loki, waiting to play.
Another view plus a detail of the head below.
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Ceramic clay, black iron oxide wash finished with pigmented wax patina. Finishing the crow yesterday made me realize how much I want to concentrate on ceramic sculpture at this time.
I’ve experimented lately with oil clay as a temporary medium for later casting. I enjoy working in oil clay but it is so expensive to have molds made and casting into a permanent material — well, it’s simply not feasible for me.
I also tried carving in stone and really really like it, but again, there are problems for me. My hands can’t take it. The arthritis in my thumbs is simply not amused by all the pounding and bashing. Workspace is a big issue with all the shards and dust stone carving creates. I’d have to work in the driveway, which is thoroughly unappealing to me (wishing for that garage or studio–someday). And it takes forever! I don’t think I’ll live long enough to do more than a couple pieces.
And anyway, I love the feel of earthen clay. It’s cool, pliable, grounding and quirky.
So, as soon as my current obligations are met, I will not be taking on any more illustration work and will concentrate on experimenting with ceramic sculpture and developing a strong body of work.
and well…. I just like playing in the mud.
Ceramic clay, black iron oxide wash finished with pigmented wax patina. 
Ceramic clay, black iron oxide wash finished with pigmented wax patina. 
Ceramic clay, black iron oxide wash finished with pigmented wax patina. -
So, we went to the art show opening tonight to find out that my sculpture, “gargoyle dog” won the Merion Art Repro award. The piece was also smack dab in the center of the room so it was the first thing you see when you walk into the gallery.
To say I’m surprised is really an understatement. This photo isn’t all that flattering to the piece, but well, what can ya do with a camera phone? There are better shots of this in an earlier post and also on Flickr.
Here’s a closeup through flickr. The color of this is much closer to the actual color of the sculpt.
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well, not the whole world, just the small part of my world that was on livejournal.
There was no real reason for this move except that I haven’t bothered posting publicly on Livejournal for quite a while. No real reason for that either. I just lost the habit I suppose. And then I got notification of the yearly fee for my journal and well, since I’m hardly ever using it anymore, it seemed reasonable to do something else. So this is something else. WordPress seems like a decent blogging atmosphere and somehow more “grown up” than LJ. Plus it has a nice import feature that enabled me to get my stuff from LJ copied here. Nice feature!
I’m hoping to talk more about art, wildlife and nature in general and maybe not so much about the personal stuff that seemed to makeup the bulk of what’s over at Livejournal (but, ya never know, at least I don’t).
A few things happening now that I’d like to share….
My husband, his friend A.C. Wise and I have put together a new online magazine called The Journal of Unlikely Entomology of which the first issue has garnered some rather nice comments.
We created the journal to be “a new literary market for fiction that delves into the world of things that creep and crawl and explores the limits of what it means to be human” (from the about page). The Journal will be published biannually in May and November, with the possibility of an additional “roving mini-issue” some time during the year. There’s also a blog associated with it, Grump’s Journal, if you are interested in finding out more about the contributing authors and artists. The blog will include announcements, calls for submissions as well as guest bloggers.
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Today is the opening of The Wayne Art Center’s student show, in which I have one small sculpture. I’ve included a picture of it below…but if you are local to the area, please drop by the center and take a look at all the works. There are a lot of very talented people working at the center, and the gallery space at the center is really quite nice.
Croneswood Art 