Unfinished business

"In hell there is no other punishment 

than to begin over and over again 

the tasks left unfinished in your lifetime."

-- Andre Gide

Polymer clay mask 7-25-13

"I don't like the word 'experiment' in the context of art in general. 

It implies something immature, unfinished, 

something entertaining for a moment before it becomes irrelevant."

-- Abel Korzeniowski

Peg Boggs:   Oh, my. What happened to you?

Edward:      I'm not finished.

 

-- Edward Scissorhands

Typically a face has to be "finished" before I post it on the blog.

But sometimes I like to indulge in a process that takes a little longer than a day to complete, from start to finish.

Often, if I am waiting for such a process to take its time, I make other less time consuming faces simultaneously, post those, and wait for the time consuming one -- the lolly-gagger -- to be finished.

But today's face, even though I plan to do more to it, looked kind of cool in it's unfinished state. 

So I decided to share it, and some of my process.

For anyone who's interested.

This face is a mask -- a life-sized face -- made of polymer clay.

Usually when I make a mask this size, I use the clay as a mold only, and render the final mask from it in papier mache.

But this face  looked pretty cool in clay, and it had some details that I didn't want to lose in the papier mache.  Plus, I haven't ever made anything this big in polymer clay and I was in an experimental mood.

So I went ahead and baked it and made it permanent.

Here it is "raw," while the clay was still pliable and before I glued in the teeth.

Polymer clay mask (unbaked) 7-25-13

Polymer clay mask, baked, with teeth 7-25-13

And here it is "baked." With the teeth glued in.

While I was photographing it, it was getting dark, so I had work lights on. 

I dug how the light filtered through the mask highlighting and shadowing the different thicknesses of the clay. 

Also, it made this face look super-sinister. Which I also dug.  

It looked like this:

Polymer clay mask (2) 7-25-13

He looks pretty devilish, doesn't he? 

Or maybe she's a she.

 I haven't decided yet. 

Stay tuned.

To get the image at the top of the page, I used this same image, and just fiddled with the colors and contrasts, turned and tweaked a couple of knobs.

I plan to do more with this mask, but I enjoyed playing with it the way it is. 

It's a lot like raising kids.

You don't have to wait for them to grow up before you can enjoy them.

They're lots of fun at every age.

And its nice to take pictures to chart their progress along the way.

Also, just in case I fuck up this mask by doing more with it, I wanted to have a record of its existence while it was still pretty good.

Which is also a lot like raising kids.

Hold on

"I like to use my hands and make things ...

It might seem pretty stupid or  pointless but that doesn't matter ...

Some of the most interesting work is the stuff that starts like that --

out of a raw need for activity."

-- Bruce Nauman

Self portrait in polymer clay 7-7-13

“I don't want to be the one who says life is beautiful.
I want to be the one who feels it.”

-- Marty Rubin

Luna tick, Luna tock

“Zaphod felt he was teetering on the edge of madness 

and wondered if he shouldn't just jump over and have done with it.”

-- Douglas Adams, 

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Polymer clay face 5-30-13

“Of all the things a man may do, sleep probably contributes most to keeping him sane.” 

-- Roger Zelazny,  Isle of the Dead 

“I lie on the floor, washed by nothing and hanging on. 

I cry at night. I am afraid of hearing voices, or a voice. 

I have come to the edge, of the land.

I could get pushed over."

-- Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye

Ding ding ding!

Insomnia fun fact!

Since I was up all night and the moon was big and bright ...

Luna is the Roman name for the Greek goddess of the moon, Selene. She is best known in ancient art and literature for her role in the myth of Endymion.

Endymion was a shepherd, and is thought to be the first human to observe the movements of the moon. I figure he watched the moon a lot because he was up at night literally counting sheep and looking out for predators that might be stalking his flock in the dark.

At least he had a good reason to be awake, unlike me, who was up all night fending off anxiety, agitation and total lunacy by polishing all of my boots and shoes, lifting weights, reading a photography magazine, and watching Robert Irvine salvage yet another dying eatery on "Restaurant Impossible."

Ding ding ding!

Bonus insomnia fun fact!

"Lunacy" is a term that comes from the word lunaticus, which means ... wait for it ... "of the moon" or "moonstruck". "Lunatic" is a term referring to people who are considered mentally ill, dangerous, foolish or unpredictable. Hence, today's crazy face.

Yay! Fun with etiology!

But back to our myth.

According to the story, Selene (aka Luna) was super-infatuated with Endymion the hottie demigod shepherd, who was a son of Zeus, and who was young and beautiful (especially, it seems, by moonlight).

Apparently, Selene/Luna thought Endymion looked particularly good when he was asleep, so good, in fact, that she asked Zeus to grant him eternal youth and eternal sleep so that she could enjoy gazing at his flawless, moonlit, slumbering face forever and ever. Zeus granted her request, and every night until the end of time, Selene visits Endymion where he sleeps endlessly and eternally in a cave on Mount Latmus.

Sleeps endlessly and eternally ...

I'm totes jelly.

Some hottie demigod shepherds have all the luck.

Ding ding ding!

This isn't fun anymore.

Clayface

"What is a face, really? 

Its own photo? Its make-up? 

Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? 

That which is in front? Inside? Behind? 

And the rest? 

Doesn't everyone look at himself 

in his own particular way? 

Deformations simply do not exist."

-- Pablo Picasso

Self portrait with polymer clay face 5-22-13

Polymer clay face with jiggle eyes 5-22-13

 "No man for any considerable period 

can wear one face to himself 

and another to the multitude, 

without finally getting bewildered 

as to which may be true." 

-- Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Facing it, always facing it, 

that's the way to get through. 

Face it."

-- Joseph Conrad

Serenity now!

"We can be serene even in the midst of calamities."

-- Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras

 

"Let reality be reality."

                                                 -- Lao Tzu

Stone garden statue in my backyard 5-18-13

Frank:      "Serenity now! Serenity now!"
George:    "What is that?"
Frank:       "The doctor gave me a relaxation cassette. When my blood pressure gets too high,
                  the man on the tape tells me to say 'serenity now!"
George:     "Are you supposed to yell it?"
Frank:       "The man on the tape wasn't specific."

-- Frank and George Costanza, Seinfeld episode 159, "The Serenity Now"

I am trying a new approach.

Instead of lying awake all night struggling for sleep that never comes, I have decided to stop fighting against my insomnia and start cooperating with it instead.

The first step is acceptance.

Insomnia is my "calamity." It is the card I've been dealt. It is my reality and it doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. 

So we're going to have to find a way to co-exist.

I think it's called coping.

I did a dry-run of the new plan last night. It went like this:

I went to bed at 11:30 p.m.

I was still wide awake at 2 a.m., so I got up and lifted weights for an hour. 

I know, I know. Trust me, I know. All the sleep advice says not to exercise late in the day or in the evening, because it might disrupt normal sleep patterns. Well guess what? My sleep patters are already abnormally fucked and I'm not sleeping anyway. Also, I've been wanting to work some strength training into my routine. And, 2 a.m. is neither late in the day nor is it evening. It is technically early, early morning. So I was actually getting a head start. Look at me being the early bird. Getting that worm.

I was wider awake (and sweaty) at 3 a.m., so I baked molasses cookies.

My very wise friend Jill suggested this tactic. In an email (all the way from Chile!), Jill wrote:

"Do you ever cook at night? 

I used to do that a lot. Actually, baking, more often. 

You can just make tons and tons of things, because it doesn't require a lot of concentration 

and it gives you something to do that has a tangible outcome. 

Plus you live with guys, so they can eat your stuff." 

She was right. 

It didn't require much concentration and I wound up with a satisfying pile of 5 dozen delicious cookies that made my not-sleeping seem not-so-futile. Plus, the house smelled amazing -- spicy and welcoming and homey. Jill was also right that the guys I live with would eat my stuff. This morning, my husband went back for thirds with his coffee. Even my paleo, carnivorous, carb-hating weightlifter-of-a-son gobbled a few. As he was chewing one cookie and reaching for another, he told me, "These are really good cookies." Bonus mom points.

While the cookies baked, I watched an interview from 2009 with Jason Bateman on "Inside the Actor's Studio," in which Bateman said there would be a film version of  Arrested Development. Wait, what? Did I miss something or is Jason Bateman just a big fat liar?

At 4 a.m. I was still pretty awake (and salty about Jason Bateman being a liar and all), but I went back to bed anyway. I drifted off around 5 and dreamed that an old friend and I were de-hoarding her mother's house. So it appears as though I accomplished that, too.

I slept about an hour and a half. 

I was awake again at 6:22 a.m. and got up for another day. 

This day. 

And even though my eyes are puffed like Mr. Magoo, and even though I am really tired and will probably be pretty much worthless for the rest of this day, at least I managed to sidestep a lot of the negative, toxic, self-loathing, dark, emotional and psychological turmoil and anxiety that usually shits on my sanity while I'm lying helpless and hopelessly awake for hours and hours on end. 

Also, my shoulders look pretty buff.

You don't have to rip my face off

“I want to make something of myself. 

I believe it’s called a statue. 
” 

--Jarod Kintz

The Titanic would never have sunk if it were made out of a sink.

Smiling bendy man with magazine cutout statue and a polymer clay face 5-16-13

“Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. 

But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. 

Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide 

that a certain painting would look better in your house, 

and you simply grab the painting and take it there. 

But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, 

it would be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it.”

-- Lemony Snicket, The Wide Window

4 a.m. blues

“There is a dead spot in the night, 

that coldest, blackest time 

when the world has forgotten evening 

and dawn is not yet a promise. 

A time when it is far too early to arise, 

but so late that going to bed makes small sense.”

-- Robin Hobb, Assassin's Quest 

Polymer clay face 5-15-13

"I could hear the roots of loneliness 

creeping through me when the world was hushed 

at four o'clock in the morning.” 

-- Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Night is the hardest time to be alive  ...

It lasts so long, and four a.m. knows all my secrets.”

                                    -- Poppy Z. Brite

Jesus, my face is up here

"Let me give you a little inside information about God. 

God likes to watch. He's a prankster."

-- The Devil's Advocate

Cement garden statues 5-11-13

 “We are all tempted, Mma. We are all tempted when it comes to cake."

 "That is true," said Mma Potokwane sadly. 

"There are many temptations in this life, but cake is probably one of the biggest of them.”

-- Alexander McCall Smith, In The Company of Cheerful Ladies

  

“We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it.” 

-- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

                                                                                                                   

For the past several weeks I've been driving past this nursery/garden supply place in my town as it's been re-opening for Spring. They sell flowers, plants, seeds, gardening tools, birdbaths, fountains, wheelbarrows, hoses, fertilizer, trees, mulch, dirt, you name it.

They also sell statues.

The statues are all situated under a pergola near the road, and after driving past a few times a week, I got curious wondering whether there might be any good faces in the crowd.

Um. There were.

It tickled me so much, this juxtaposition of the religious with the carnal, the paradox of Jesus and that weird little monk-robed dude hanging out beside David and the Venus de Milo. I love how Jesus is sort of fondling that flaming heart-thing on his chest, trying not to look but clearly stealing a sideways glance at David's junk, with Venus' tits tempting him right there at eye level. The little monk-robed dude is just totally fixated on David's candy.

So many photo captions and dialogue bubbles, so little time:

"How's it hanging?"
"Wait, what? You mean this isn't the Christian Mingle mixer?" 
"Yo, Dave. The Miracle Gro is in aisle five."
"Jesus, my face is up here."
"No one said anything to me about the full Monty!"
"When I think about you, I touch myself."
"Did you find that thing in the annuals or perennials?"
"Don't touch my junk!"
"Look but don't touch look but don't touch look but don't touch look but don't touch."
"I guess that other thing wasn't the last temptation of me after all."
"Get thee behind me, Satan. You're blocking my view."
"Nice mums."
"I have a heart on."
"He isn't risen."

OK, I'll stop now.

 

I promise, I did not in any way touch, arrange, pose or artificially assemble these statues for my twisted photographic amusement. I shot them undisturbed in their natural habitat.

Try a little tenderness

"Tender," she said again. 

"Tender is kind and gentle. 

It's also sore, 

like the skin around an injury.”

                                                                                        --Brenna Yovanoff, The Space Between

Polymer clay sad face 4-23-13

Please be gentle.
I am feeling tender today.

P.S. I am featured today on 365-days guru Noah Scalin's "Make Something 365 and Get Unstuck" blog. Check it out at http://makesomething365.blogspot.com/2013/04/erins-face-day.html

Portrait of a soul

“Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations 

without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers,
and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.”

                                                                                        -- Stanislaw Lem, Solaris 

Paperclay face 4-3-13

“The most adventurous journey to embark on; 

is the journey to yourself, the most exciting thing to discover;

 is who you really are, the most treasured pieces that you can find; 

are all the pieces of you, the most special portrait you can recognize; 

is the portrait of your soul.”

                                                                                             -- C. JoyBell C.

There comes a time in every 365 days project when I consider how many of those 365 days still remain. And I wonder ... 

Will the supply run out?

Will the ideas dry up?

Have I discovered all there is to discover?

Have I thoroughly explored my own "labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers," or merely tapped lightly, timidly, at their doors hoping no one answers?

Have I found all the pieces of who I am, or have I only just begun assembling the scraps?

Have I plumbed the murky depths, or barely skimmed the surface?

Will sameness and repetition ground my enthusiasm and spirit of discovery?

Is it over?

Is there more? 

Am I done?

And I pick up the camera.

Somehow I catch a thermal, an updraft, a rising column of -- not air. Something purer lifts me up and over, carrying me beyond my limited down-here point of view. Scanning the landscape from up here I spy movement, I spot a frightened little possibility, a skittering something, zipping and dodging furtively across the ground looking for a place to hide, hoping I won't notice.

But I do notice. 

And I capture it. I capture an image that didn't exist a moment ago. A face is born. Maybe it's my own face seen anew. A me that changes every day. Maybe it's a brand new face, a face made of paper, or clay, or in today's case, Paperclay. 

I mold and push and carve and pinch a shapeless blob of plasticized paper pulp until my hands cradle a little man. And the little man is smiling.

Paperclay face (2) 4-3-13

"Hold still," I say. "While I take your picture."

He indulges my intrusion. Like a gentle, tolerant old family dog that has spent its life submitting to silly costumes and the poking, prodding hands of clumsy, sticky children, the little man keeps smiling as I pose him, position him, turn him, move him. I encroach on his boundaries and trample all over his comfort zone as I shove the camera lens smack into his face, all the while pressing the shutter again, and again, and again trying to crack the code and get at his personality, to unlock his mystery, to catch a glimpse of his soul. 

To catch a glimpse of my own soul, which is far more skittish and elusive.

The pursuit is intoxicating. And like any potent intoxicant, addictive. I will want more of it tomorrow. I want more of it right now.

Yes, there are worlds and civilizations out there for the discovering. I am not interested in those worlds. I am not that kind of archaeologist. I'm searching for the bits and pieces of "me" that are still hidden, pieces I've subconsciously or all-too intentionally locked away, and which have become entombed in something like hardened earth, which rest sparkling like treasures in a riverbed. 

Beginning again. Again.

"The beginning is always today."

                                                 --Mary Shelley

Polymer clay face with egg shell 3-17-13

It's therapy. But is it art?

Screaming polymer clay face with Mohawk 3-13-13

Art therapy.

I tag that label onto a lot of my posts here at the AFAD2013 blog.

There are myriad "official" and "accepted" definitions and ideas about what art therapy is. I don't really care about definitions. Definitions aren't always helpful. For me, if it's creative and it helps carry me through a day or a week or a moment without totally losing my shit, then it's art therapy.

I began taking daily self portraits on Jan. 1, 2011 as a self-imposed 365 days art project. It was definitely therapeutic. With the important guidance and support of someone a whole lot steadier, wiser and settled than me (I'll call her "M"), I journeyed through some pretty delicate and dangerous emotional, psychological and spiritual territory.

I didn't show the photographs to anybody outside my own immediate family and one very trusted friend, and they saw only a very select few.
 "M" saw every photograph.
Even the ones I didn't want to show her.
Especially the ones I didn't want to show her.

Those 365 days were transformative. Not to get all maudlin and dramatic about it, but those 365 days probably saved my life. At a time when I felt like I was disappearing -- dissolving -- the task of making a self-portrait every day gave me a reason to get up, to look around, to move forward. I created a photographic record, concrete visual proof, that I was indeed still there.

And I had a witness.

Screaming polymer clay face with Mohawk (2) 3-13-13

Sharing the portraits with "M" gave them importance. Urgency. Gravity. It made them real. It made whatever I was thinking or feeling or saying real. I wasn't just spitting into the wind or shouting into the void.

I am still imposing art therapy on myself because I need it, and I know it.
And "M" still sees every photograph. Her tender and willing participation in this project (along with my family and that very trusted friend) has encouraged me to open the door to a wider audience (you!)

I am not going to pretend for even a hot second that I believe that the portraits on this blog will rock anybody's world but my own. And that's OK, because whatever the accepted definitions might be, art therapy isn't about rocking anybody else's world. It's about keeping my eyes wide open as I travel through my own personal interior landscape and being brave enough to document what I see. It's about daring, and caring, enough to be an observant and curious sight-seer along the highways, back roads and dark alleys of my own life.

Polymer clay face with Mohawk (3) 3-13-13

At the end of the day, creating and  capturing faces for this blog is less about art, and more about art therapy. Whatever is happening inside and around me, whether I'm feeling happy, sad, angry, confused, sure, inquisitive, silly or volcanic -- art therapy gives me the tools (and the toys!) to say what I need to say. Or in today's case, to scream what I need to scream.

To sleep: perchance to dream

Ay, there's the rub.

Polymer clay sleepy face (2) 3-9-13

I sculpted this little face during a long car ride yesterday following a string of difficult nights of very-little-not-til-the-wee-hours sleep, and fresh (or not so) on the heels of a night that yielded absolutely no sleep at all.

Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. None.

I rode in the rear seat and passed the time there and back pressing and molding and smoothing and rubbing the egg-sized lump of clay in my hand until this sleepy guy emerged.

He is my second sleepy head this month (see also March 2). Maybe in my desperate quest for sound, regular slumber (who am I kidding? At this point I'd settle for any quality of regular slumber) I am subliminally (or not so) shaping sleep totems for myself. Maybe by making sleeping faces I am trying to conjure magic or some kind of spell for myself that will hold the sleep stealers and insomnia bandits at bay. I don't know. But at this point, I'm willing to try just about anything.

He looks peaceful, despite his earnest little furrowed brow. He makes me feel peaceful. He is resting on my pillow. And I did finally sleep better last night. So maybe some drowsiness really did seep out of him and into me.

Maybe not.

At any rate, sculpting clay is a lovely way to pass time in the car. I highly recommend it.

Face yourself

"God has given you one face and you make yourselves another." 

-- William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1

Wood mannequin with polymer clay face 3-5-13

Shadow play

"If you don't have any shadows you're not in the light."

-- Lady Gaga

Shadow face (polymer clay) 3-3-13

 Playing with light, dark, planes and angles.

Sleepy head

“I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. 

Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. 

I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. 

That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning.” 

-- Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower 

Polymer clay sleepy face 3-2-13

Dreidl, dreidl, dreidl, I made it out of clay

OK, it's not really a dreidl.
It's another face.
But I did make it out of clay.
And jiggle eyes.
And false eyelashes.

Polymer clay face with jiggle eyes and false eyelashes 2-27-13

Respect the 'stache

 “Since I don't smoke, I decided to grow a mustache - it is better for the health.
However, I always carried a jewel-studded cigarette case in which, 

instead of tobacco, were carefully placed several mustaches, Adolphe Menjou style. 

I offered them politely to my friends: 'Mustache? Mustache? Mustache?' 

Nobody dared to touch them. 

This was my test regarding the sacred aspect of mustaches.”

-- Salvador Dali, Dali's Mustache 

I made another clay face.
Here he is, rocking the 'stache.
The 'stache is everything.

Polymer clay face with jiggle eyes and string 2-23-13

 And here he is wearing a little hat!

Polymer clay face with jiggle eyes, string and a hat 2-23-13

Making faces

Polymer clay face with jiggle eyes 2-20-13

I shaped this little face from a lump of polymer clay and a pair of jiggle eyes. He makes me pretty happy.
Playing with clay makes me pretty happy too.

I'm no sculptor, but give me a lump of clay and I travel to a happy place that goes all the way back to first grade. On the first day of school way back when I was a little kid, along with new crayons and fresh pencils, there was always a rectangular block of brand new, cellophane wrapped modeling clay on each student's desk. About the size of a Snickers bar.
Blue. Red. Green.
Untouched.
Pristine.
For my first grade teacher, Mrs. Wallace, I'm sure the clay was just an ingenious way to keep our little hands busy and our little mouths quiet while she read aloud to us or assisted other students.
For me, it was a handful of happy.

A few years ago I took a for real ceramics class in a for real ceramics studio, with for real pottery wheels, extruders, vats of  glazes, kilns and everything. We learned hand building techniques, meaning we didn't get to use the potter's wheels. Instead, we created pieces by simply molding and coiling and pressing and carving the clay with our fingers and a few simple tools. And in this class, each student received a 25 pound brick of pottery clay. Heaven!

We met twice a week from 8 to 11:30 a.m. Often I stayed and kept working through lunch. Why eat when you can play with clay? The hours seemed like minutes. It felt like flying. And the flying took me all the way back to first grade where I was fully immersed, absorbed, lost, happy -- my mind swept clean of everything except for the shape emerging in my hands.

I don't have a kiln, or access to one, so polymer clay is a perfect material for me. I mostly use it to make foundations for Papier Mache masks.

And for immediate transport to my happy place.