Picking Up Where I Left Off!

Truly hard to believe that I haven't posted in all these months! I've been thinking and writing in my head but now its time to get back to the (virtual) page. When I settled back down in my studio this fall I was really happy to feel a strong continuance of what I had been up to in the spring. I knew that I hadn't been away because I had been unsure of my work, unsure of the way that my inner eye wanted things to take shape in the outer world. I had been away taking care of other things that have all contributed to my feelings of flow and balance.

A few weeks ago I found myself using the term Status Flow in my writing. It is definitely not the same as Status Quo, in which all things remain more or less the same. In my mind, it is a state of progression in which there is a continuance of flow in the direction of authentic expression. It is not necessarily a flow without resistance. It is not necessarily a flow with a defined and visible destination. But it is movement in a direction that continues to feel right and good. Status Flow - flowing with change in an authentic direction, navigating the waterway as it appears. 

Since I have been physically back in the studio my work has been going well. I have finished the form of 3 pieces I have reworked and am well on my way to finishing a third that I began from raw stone. Reworking previously finished pieces is new for me. I started to do this because I was dissatisfied with some of my previously finished sculptures. I began to see where fear had held me back , where I hadn't pushed the form to completion on the original sculpture.  I wasn't happy with previously 'finished' pieces and I wanted to make the stone more expressive. So I wrenched off bases, dug out supporting pins and used my bow saw to cut into the sculptures.   

Never once did I feel as though I was destroying something, just continuing to create. Here are a couple of pictures of Fountain, in process and then as a finished sculpture in its second reincarnation.

Thresholds and Transitions...

I really like the idea of thresholds and transitional spaces. Like portals into a magical world, I imagine they allow us to to move from the everyday to a safe place where we are not the same as we were before. Crossing the threshold can have symbolic meaning as when the groom carries the bride over the threshold or a couple jumps the broomstick to show that they have left one way of being in the world and begun another. I like that little rituals like this involve a physical act that illustrates a psychological shift. When we refer to crossing a threshold in our lives there is the implication that having made this choice we will never be the same again. And then there is the transition zone between land and water. A shoreline is a powerful place of change where so many things can happen.

When I started to write about this I remembered a really early portal in my life. One of the interesting things about this crossing is that it came with a sound. I wasn't very old when I started spending most of my summers sleeping in a tent. The zipper on the tent and the sound that it made symbolized safety and protection from all the threats of the outside world. I still feel this way when I hear the sound of a long zipper on a tent or a sleeping bag. In my 8 year old mind, the thin walls of the tent had just been blessed with magical powers that would keep me safe until dawn. I don't think I thought the walls had become unbelievably strong, but that I had become invisible.

A couple of years ago I took a course to become a Certified Life Cycle Celebrant. As part of our study of rituals and ceremonies I was introduced to the ideas of Joseph Campell. In his research he found that unique cultures spread through time and space had developed a wide range of rituals and ceremonies but these practices generally shared universal symbolism and structure. I love to think about that when I am feeling disconnected! Thousands of years and thousands of miles apart, people came up with sacred rituals and ceremonies that have a common structure and symbolism.

This pattern of sacred meaning is often described as the Hero's Journey. Part of the pattern involves an individual leaving the known for a journey through the dangerous unknown and then returning with something of benefit to all. In order to do this at least one, if not two, thresholds must be crossed. I embrace the idea that we can move through a time of transition with all its' confusion and uncertainty and emerge on the other side a profoundly different person than when we began. Washed by fire, if it's a particularly brutal transition, or pushed incessantly down a fast moving river - whatever the initiation we never see the world the same way again.

I do my best work in the studio when my mind is calm and expansive. I don't work well with a grocery list of other demands on my time circling through my head. I Know this is true for most people but often it is easier said than done. To help remind myself that I am crossing the threshold between the everyday and my sacred space, I painted a drawing at the threshold of my studio. The idea is to notice the drawing on my way in and to allow it to help me to enter the present moment. It is also a little ritual that connects me back to the thousands of years of civilization that has thought it important to move mindfully from one state to another.

I recently crossed another threshold, from creation to completion with this new sculpture - Sleeping Moon. She is carved from Brazilian soapstone and finished with bees wax. I used the two colours of the stone (green and brown) in my design and I am really happy with how she turned out.

Smaller pieces like this can be really satisfying. I think of them as a 3 dimensional doodle, often using scraps of stone left over from larger pieces. With smaller sculptures I don't feel the reluctance to change the inherent grace of the stone that I sometimes feel when I start a larger piece. With larger sculptures I know that I need to alter and remove some of what has drawn me to the stone in the first place. I think this is because I see the stone as more than raw material for me to use to satisfy my creative urge. We need each other to create the final form.

I recently crossed another threshold with this new sculpture - Sleeping Moon. She is carved from Brazilian soapstone and finished with bees wax. I used the two colours of the stone, green and brown, in my design and I am really happy with the way she turned out.

Getting Down to Work...

In the mornings I always hope for the time to sit for a bit and check in with what's going on in my head. When I take the time to look,  I usually have any number of little whirling thoughts raising dust storms in my mind. These dust storms can range in intensity from totally obscuring the distant horizon to a slight haze just below the level of consciousness. When I peer into it, I can pretty quickly see that each storm is powered by some fear or another.

Just naming the fear often brings about a little aha moment and the dust begins to settle enough so that I can see the hope that lies behind the fear. There is always a hope behind the fear. For me, there would be no fear if I didn't have a hope or an idea of how I would like things to turn out.  I'd rather focus on the hope than the fear, giving myself the chance to direct my energy towards the positive instead of using it to avoid the negative.

I really think that the exercise of writing things down slows my thoughts enough to let me sort through them. I love the way the pen feels sliding across the paper. I think it is really cool how I have learned these symbols so well that I can combine them in such a way that they become an expression of how my mind works. Not just what it thinks, but how it works. There is something about writing with pen or pencil on paper that actually facilitates the awareness of my thoughts.

No matter how fast I learn to type, I don't think using a keyboard will ever give me the same result. Hitting letters on a keyboard will always skip over the part where I am effortlessly using my mind and my body to create and combine the 26 symbols of the alphabet. It is this dance, in which my hand creates a tangible record of my thoughts, that I think of as a tool in discovering some order behind the whirling thoughts. Each little twister can be tamed and untangled with this simple process. Dreams discovered behind fears.

I just had a strange visual of a tiny little room with a window, and a bed and a dresser. I am carefully tucking the fear-turned-hope into bed, closing the curtain and turning out the light. All this to say that this morning I pretty much ordered all my little fears about going back into the studio. I haven't  been able to spend a lot of time there over the last week and now I am looking forward to heading back in and getting some work done! There are three pieces that I have almost finished that I am ready to let go in terms of their process bringing them each to a close. And there is some reluctance involved in finishing a sculpture. I will have to think about that one morning...

The tools that I use...

When I am ready to start a new piece the first tool that I use is my angle grinder. I use the angle grinder to get rid of large amounts of stone, slowly and carefully working to see the form as it is revealed. The 4 inch diamond blade is pretty good at making the dust fly so I always work outside at this point in the piece. I take care not to let the curve of the blade define the form of the sculpture. To a greater or lesser extent, the tool that is used necessarily defines the shape that is produced. As a sculptor I am always aware that I lead the tool - it doesn't lead me. By using just the leading edge of the blade I can control more closely how it cuts into the stone. By gently pulling or pushing the grinder it is possible to work in defining shapes but really precise details are left for later.

By the time I am ready to put down the grinder I have a pretty good idea of what is going on with the stone. I may have had to set it aside and shyly observe it, or I may not. I will always have spent time looking at the stone from every angle, moving it to stand in every direction. I may not know which way will be 'up' in the end but I do know that in a 360 degree perspective, the piece makes sense. There are some sculptures that never develop an upside.  Most often I can find a preferred way of looking at the form but sometimes I am not willing to sacrifice any of the perspectives by designating one plane as the bottom of the piece. PEBBLES and BUDDHA'S FEET are good examples of this kind of work.

I like this approach because the eye, and the mind, and the soul like variety. By changing the orientation of the sculpture it's easy to rekindle new interest in the form.

Back to the process... At some point,  I often use a dremel tool as well. Because of its' range of attachments it can be pretty useful as I get closer and closer to the final form.  The huge majority of my time and effort is spent with riffler files and sand paper. I use the files to refine and add detail and the sand paper to make the marks that I have put on the stone fainter and fainter. For a high polished finish I use 6 grades of sandpaper. I have to admit that I don't always look forward to finishing a piece at that point. My finger tips are often raw and my patience with the finishing touches runs thin. Because of this I always have more than one piece on the go at any given time and I move back and forth between a couple of different stages in the process.

I have noticed that there are some advantages to this tedious work though. I become intimately familiar with the nuances of the form that I have created. I notice things that would otherwise have gone unobserved - how one form slides into another for example. Or how a certain curve pulls your eye into the energy at the centre of the piece. I also notice things that I am not completely happy with - an awkward transition or a place where I could have pushed the form a little further. I believe that whether or not I bring these details into consciousness they have an influence on my future work.  In this way there is a progression and a continuity to what I am doing that could not otherwise have been achieved. 

This is who I am and what I hope to do...

Hi, and welcome to my page! My idea with these posts is to open a conversation about my art. I am a sculptor currently working in stone. As my pieces are largely worked by hand, I generally choose relatively soft stone, alabaster, chlorite, calcite and soap stone for example.

All I can tell you about my reasons for choosing a particular stone is that beyond colour, I am attracted to a certain gravity in a particular stone. I'm really not sure how I would describe 'gravity' other than that it is a feeling that a particular stone is for me. I know that sometimes I see a curve or an angle on the outside of the stone that I know will act as a 'way in' or starting point in uncovering the final form of the sculpture.

Other times it is something that I sense from within

Sometimes this 'gravity' speaks strongly and clearly right from the beginning, other times it takes a while to understand where I need to go. When I'm not quite sure of my direction with a particular stone, I usually set it up where I can see it (sometimes that means bringing it into the house) and I watch it for a while. I don't usually sit and stare right at it. I usually continue with other work and consider it with sideways glances every once and a while. I pause, I turn the stone, I try to empty my mind. There is something about the sideways glance that works better for me than staring it down. And then one day it attracts my attention and I know what needs to be done.

Every piece is a problem solving activity. At least once in most sculptures I reach an impasse when I am not sure where I should go next. In that case I just set it aside and wait for it to talk. When it does, I feel as though I have just solved a clever riddle and I wonder what took me so long, or I feel that some gentle teasing has come to an end and I know a little bit more about myself.