Totem piece: Beginning
So the brief was "Dolls With Souls"; creating a doll that represented some aspect of yourself. The challenge was that it was 3D work and thus right out of my area of experience. Still the horses had been working out fairly well, and I figured it couldn't be much different, so long as I knew what I wanted to put down in clay.
My original idea was to represent the Chymical Wedding with influences from the Tibetan Tantric YabYum, both of which represent the spiritual union of two halves to make a perfect whole, a reference to two spiritual paths that are important to me, as well as the philosophy behind my particular brand of androgyny.
Then we received an email mentioning that since the gallery was a public space in Melbourne's City Square, nudity was right out. As it turns out this didn't stop some people and everyone seems to be fine with it, but I changed my direction.
After workshopping ideas with patchworkkid, who is an absolute wonder to do this sort of thing with, not actually suggesting ideas, but instead suggesting ways of coming up with them, the new piece became a Kali-esque Dandy. I wanted to make a piece that spoke of my strengths rather than my vulnerabilities; the pieces I'd heard of so far had been very much about the artists' vulnerabilities. Which is absolutely valid, and can be very beautiful, but running with the "Totem" theme I wanted to crystallise some of the things I was proud of and wished to "totemise", rather than fears, weaknesses, etc.
So the Dandy Kali design came about because Kali is one of two "patron" (I hate that word for some reason) deities for me, and has been since I was four, living in Nepal. And if you know me at all the whole Dandy thing will be abundantly clear. The combination of the two was also, I realised in retrospect, a nice little nod to Gideon Stargrave in The Invisibles, which wasn't deliberate but pleased me anyway. The figure would be of indeterminate gender, and each of its four hands would hold something significant; the individual item having its own meaning, and the multiple hands also representing the fact that I do, well, a lot of different things.
I wanted it also to have a slightly anime feel. This wasn't just for Cool; the concepts of Orientalism and reverse Orientalism behind the anime/manga aesthetic are important to me because I grew up in Asia and "belong" wholly neither here nor there. The aesthetic exchange between the two cultures and the complex interplay of philosophies that feed it is both profoundly interesting and meaningful to me. Also, the way in which androgyny in shoujo manga is represented is important to me too.
But getting on to the creation of the piece...
I originally decided to make the piece out of air-drying clay. I don't work large, generally, and I do like fine detail so I wanted something that I could sculpt fairly finely in, but wouldn't have to fire.
Unfortunately, it looked like this:
The clay was too sloppy and I couldn't work finely with it; it wouldn't hold form. No doubt some people are incredibly good at sculpting in the stuff, but I'm not one of them. I also realised that it wouldn't bond to itself, wet-to-dry, which made it next-to-useless for what I wanted to do. I don't know why I didn't just start with this stuff, but I went back to the expoxy resin I'm used to working with. It's expensive but it's a sculptor's gift. Apoxie Sculpt. Best stuff ever, seriously.
Finally, the torso started taking shape. Because I've never done this before I went about it the hard way, sculpting a naked figure first, then adding layers. It seemed the best way for an inexperienced sculptor with no reference material to get it right. Obviously, the base figure is quite rough.
I started adding clothes and limbs, once I was at my Mum's place...
Clothes design just sort of happened along the way, no planning...
And a head, and hair...
The symbol on the back is the Uffington Chalk Horse. You can see the hair-making process fairly clearly here. I've seen incredible hair-work from equine sculptors, but I think that for a first time this didn't turn out too badly.
Okay, this has been quite long enough for one post. To Be Continued...