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One thing that this commission has revealed to me is how much I miss the interaction with the surviving relatives. I sat in the studio thinking about it and became very lonely. I thought about Charlotte and pictured her there watching and I felt better. It is strange the person that gives me the most comfort in sculpting this deceased is the deceased.

I found shoes today; I had to spend $35.00 on them. They are new. I wrapped them with plastic in hopes that I can return them in a few weeks. It will be so helpful to have some three dimensional reference. Jennifer began by putting together some foam and is going to get a basic shape for the shoe. She is catching up with me. She has the hands roughed in for me and will soon have the shoes. I hope by the time the shoes are roughed in I can have some parts ready for her to do on the main torso. I only have her for a couple more weeks.

The details on the hands will probably take me two days, and the shoes about four. We cut off the other shoe from the main sculpture so that we could work on them both at the table. This is much easier than crawling around on the floor.

I wonder what others think when they see the sculpture. Can they see it yet? A friend came by and said that she does see it and that it is coming along. I do think it has come a long way in just eleven days. Here are some pictures of Dick and I. Once again everything is just roughed in and some parts not roughed in at all.

( my dog Emmy wanted to get in the photograph with Dick)

I am going nuts trying to find shoes. One would think I could find a simple pare of sneakers at the second hand store. After a few stops I was discouraged. Today I head off to Payless to buy a brand new pare of shoes. Or at least try to.

Why am I so obsessed with the shoes? Maybe I have just become used to having the shoes on my past commissions. It is such a wonderful reference to have and a great place to begin to capture detail. Besides, it is something that Jennifer can work on while I am busy trying to figure out the details on Dick’s torso.

Today was a busy day.

LUCAS
First Jennifer pin pricked a Xerox copy of Lucas’ tea shirt so that we could transfer the image into the wax. I was grateful for her young eyes. When she is done I will carve it out of the wax. The pattern will then show up in the metal.

DICK
Later I had her working on Dick’s hands. They start with wire and then carefully Jennifer added clay for me until she had fingers formed. She seemed to enjoy the process. I showed her how to tip the underside of the fingertips upward, and then how to make knuckles. Later I’ll work on the hands myself. Dick Hathaway had big hands so I want to be sure that I have the correct size. Time to review the video clip again.

Frustrated with the body I asked Jennifer to hold Dick’s head near the torso so I could see the design of the entire piece.
She is such a great apprentice, such a hard worker and great attitude. She held it up and then I took pictures. Then I put his head back on the stand.

With frustration surfacing again I Later decided to actually secure his head to the body. I rarely do this until the bust is complete and the torso is complete. Later I will take it off again to work on the details of his face. It is roughed in enough so that I can work on the body and get an overall picture. In just a couple of weeks Dick is coming to life!

I sort of freaked inside of myself when rolling around on my stool and looking up at the sculpture. From a certain angle I saw my deceased grandfather. I mentioned something to Jennifer, she said sitting at her angle she saw her deceased great-grandfather who was a sculptor. I laughed and said, “Maybe they are all here helping.”

One of the elements that this commission lacks is personal contact. Because the process of sculpting Dick consists of raising money for casting and my donating the sculpting, it is of a different nature than most of my other work. There are no loved ones that I can contact on a regular basis and talk with. I am beginning to see how much this is an important element of the process of sculpting the deceased. Those that are left behind are my inspiration. I draw on their love and energy to bring the work of art to life. They are mixed within the clay.

I loved e mailing Jeanine’s mom on a regular basis. Sometimes she would just send me stories, or writings and when the packages would come with video or tape recordings I was elated. I was able to celebrate her child with her. That is a tremendous part of the process. As I learned last semester, as I studied this process, it is also quite healing for my clients. Where else can they go where they can continually talk about their loved one? Many times in our Western culture we are encouraged to “move on”. There is a wonderful book called Continuing Bonds by Phyllis R Silverman, that states that continuing bonds with the deceased is not only healthy but should be encouraged. That is what I do, I help my clients to continue bonds. Together through their love we create, and there is really no better way to express love than to create. The sculpture is not an idol to hold up on a pedestal but an actual and physical manifestation of the continuing bonds, the love. I am so blessed to be able to do this.

I do wish others who knew Dick would write, or send pictures. Maybe I’ll watch the video again, but this creativity it is not from just within me, it is somehow attached to those who knew and loved the person. I need more of that right now. It is truly my inspiration.

I thought I might share a photograph of my workstation. There are several in the studio, but this is where I work on the bust of Dick Hathaway. My wonderful chair is my daughters Fisher Price high chair. I really must write them some day and tell them how great this chair is. Not only is it a great height, but it often lets me know when I am getting too wide in the hips. I have had it 21 years!

The photographs of Dick are spread out on the typewriting cart. Another very useful piece of furniture that is great in the studio. The pan is filled with hot clay that is replaced by the clay in the crockpot. The little marble slab lets me take some out and allow it to cool. There are always plenty of tools around in containers that will contain them. Jennifer will soon have a tin of different, heavy-duty tools hanging around the torso. The black case holds Dicks glasses when they are not being used.

Dick’s bust has wire that is forced into the pipe at my workstation. This pipe that the bust fits into is actually the top of my armature stand turned upside down. One of those things I found in a pinch and now it works for every portrait. The torch is nearby to heat up the bust should I need it, and I often do. I have a smaller torch that I use when I get closer to finishing the sculpture. But I have no need of that for at least another week.

Last night I sat on my rolling gardening stool at Dick’s feet and began to look at the armature in an entirely different way. I noticed earlier while Jennifer was putting clay on the piece, it was hard to keep my hands off of it. I feel possessed, in a way. The creative and artistic person in me grabs the knife and I cut off an inch here add clay there.

Even in the afternoon I turned to Jennifer and asked where the armature now deep beneath foam and clay was welded. I instructed her to cut off the clay and foam and then I picked up the grinder and ground off pieces of rebar here, took the reciprocating saw and began to change the design, modest changes but changes all the same.

There is a knowing. I don’t know if this is an intuitive knowing as I know anatomy and this needs to go here and that there. Sometimes I feel like I am just a part of a process that is already done. The sculpture of Dick Hathaway already exists someplace else and I am no different than the clay or armature. I am just a part of the process. My mind jumps around elbow, to thigh, leg to shoulder. Certainly this must be attention deficit disorder.

I get frustrated when I misplace a tool for a second, “the knife I must cut where is the knife, and the torch this must come down, where is the torch?” My mind is going a mile a minute. I was going to try and do much of this while Jennifer was there so I could say, “Add about two inches here.” But I don’t know if she would be frustrated with me. I add, I take away, I add again, sometimes in the same spot or close to it. I’m working on Dick’s right side, but I must take all of Dick in, right side, top bottom left side, back. Jump around to make sure that it looks like it goes together. We have a long way before we are finalizing details.

I think of the shoes. I went to a thrift store to look for some shoes. Didn’t find the sneakers that I wanted. I’m going to go back. They won’t be Dicks but they are real and I can copy them. I love it when the sculpture seems to morph from the feet upward.

Today the foundry called. The waxes of Lucas are ready for pick up. Jennifer came along with me to have a tour of an art foundry. Upon returning we put Lucas on the table, in pieces ready for Miguel, my other apprentice to work on them. Some day Dick will be in this same shape. I look forward to that day, because that means that we have raised the $9,000. That is needed to finish this project.

We are still beating the torso into shape. Reciprocating saw, torch, bending this adding here, taking off there, taking and adding until we find Dick’s Torso.

This weekend after Sunday school, some of the ladies invited me to lunch. I rarely get to attend these extra outings as I am so busy with school and work, but I felt I could go.

One friend had a box of items wrapped in a Hallmark bag. I noticed her neatly folding the bag over box in a ritualistic way.

She saw my intrigue.

Inside the box were letters that have been in her family for years. They were from the civil war.

Immediately upon opening the box I asked her if I could touch them. Carefully I took them out and observed the paper, the handwriting, and the words. I felt myself being swept away from the table at Piccadilly Cafeteria into a vacant space. I desperately wanted to go away quietly with these letters into a place where I could be alone. “How strange.” I thought. After all, I did not even know these people, why would this be so important to me?

I did feel that if I could be alone with the “feelings” images, flashing pictures would come to my mind that would make no sense to anyone else, and they would probably not even make sense to me but it would be a movie that I would have liked to have seen, something that in the space and time of Piccadilly cafeteria I felt deprived of. “I can make copies for you if you like,“ My fellow parishioner had said. But it was these old papers that I wanted to be with. I felt drawn to them.

After arriving home I thought about the experience. This empathic thing is not something that happens in one sense, but seems to involve all of my senses. I absorb the emotions of the people, by touch, vision and smell. I hear the words of the loved ones. In spring, when I was alone in Dick Hathaway’s office, I came across his tie. Without thinking I smelt it. And then held it to my chest. In the same way that perhaps one cherishes the shirt of their deceased lover. Writing about it feels strange. When Jeanine’s personal affects came her shirt was in the box. Come to think of it I did this same thing with her shirt, that I did with Dick’s tie.  I also smelt Lucas’ shirt.

Alone time….

I am avoiding the studio. Jennifer is there working on the Torso of Dick and Miguel is there working on the wax of Jeanine. I want to be alone with Dick to watch the images and feel the flood of emotions, Nancy, Ruth, Maida, Charlotte, Victor, Susan. To hear the words of each individual play in my head.

To talk to Charlotte while I work, if I feel so inclined.

The emotion in the clay and this process is a total sensory thing.

Jennifer has been at the studio today, once again putting clay on the armature. I laughed at myself this weekend thinking about how funny an armature looks in the beginning and how I will most likely have to beat it into submission. I want to get to work at putting the clay on the torso, but I’ll let Jennifer do that. My job is to get going on the bust.

As I sit down to work on Dick, I hear the voices of some of the other professors like Charlotte, and Maida telling me about Dick. While at residency last spring I asked Maida about how Dick would sit. She approaches each answer cautiously but with such sincerity, love and admiration. I wonder, can I kneed and massage those things into the clay-t

he love? It is exactly those types of encounters that I count on in capturing the deceased. I pull from the memories of those who knew and loved the one who is no longer here.

Thoughts of Charlotte come up. Sometimes I feel like she is there sculpting with me, or hanging out in the studio.

Luckily, with this commission, I have the added benefit of actually meeting Dick Hathaway. There is only one other man I have ever met in my life who had such charm, who was so totally endearing. It has to be over 20 years ago now. I was in Boca Raton and started to sculpt in the sand. The sand seemed so temporary. I did not have to worry about anyone approving my artwork. In the morning after the tide came it would be gone. Of course I sculpted people. While on this vacation I was introduced to a woman who had a bust of her deceased husband. I was so enthused by it. I had never really sculpted before and I wanted to know how it was done. ( I did create a bust of Christ in junior high and an elephant in grade school ) At this time in my life, 20+ years ago, I was working in the advertising industry and also painting. I had also been studying a great deal about creativity. I felt stifled as an artist and wanted to know why.

Dick Reminds me of Peter Peach another man with charm and charisma who lived in Florida. I had heard about him. Something about how creative he was and how he once had this great idea years ago about putting movies on TV, but the television people said, “Who would want to watch a movie on TV?” He also was one of the originators of the Bullwinkle Cartoon. He and his wife had been watching me sculpt in the sand as they stood on their balcony. When we finally met he looked at me very firmly and said. “You have a great talent, you must go forward with it.” At the time I had no idea it would be sculpting. I came home found some books and taught myself how to sculpt. It was amazing the first time I did. I felt so at home. Somehow Peter Peach knew something I didn’t. 20+ years later, here I am sculpting.

The clay that I am working with right now is nothing, a blob to some people; I take my knife and begin to carve away at the skull shape. Even though there is nothing of any resemblance, I can feel Dick. I slip his glasses on the shape and quickly add some ears and more of a nose. (I have added tape to protect to the lenses of the glass) The piece does not feel correct until I continue to add a neck and then a bit of a collar. The collar helps me to be able to compare the photographs of him with the clay. I’ll take it off later. I am using many of the composite photographs from the video. Even at this stage I find myself talking to the clay, jokingly, I say, “Wear are you Dick?”

I think about the age of the man as I add the neck wattle and notice the sagging cheeks. I have several photographs of Dick when he was younger and Maida had expressed an interest in me doing Dick as a younger man. Again I hear her incredible love as she speaks the words. I feel her missing him. I realize that this sculpture is as much a part of everyone that loved Dick and expressed that to me, as it is about Dick. Maybe that is where the passion comes from in my work, why people say they “feel” so much about a certain piece.

I spoke with a friend this weekend about creating what I referred to as “the lovely”. She creates portraits and flowers in oil and I love-sculpting people. Some people have not learned or do not wish to tap into “the lovely” and instead they create out of angst and somehow that is transferred to the art. I am not sure how. I do know that my feelings while working on a piece are very important. If I am mad or angry or irritated somehow that transfers to the art. I have pieces that I have created that I just don’t like looking at, and others have expressed that though they feel the pieces are artistically correct, they are really not as appealing as my other work. They don’t know why, but I do. The negative emotion somehow gets mixed in the clay and resides there. When I think of Maida or Charlotte, Nancy, Dick’s daughter or Ruth, Dick’s wife, it is these feelings that I transfer.

I have already aged Dick even in this beginning stage. The wattle, the cheeks the receding hair line. It is funny because as I started, just 40 minutes ago, I knew I had a younger man, but an older Dick is emerging and it is just beginning. If I had more references of him at a younger age I would attempt a younger pose but it takes more focus on my part to work with age progression or in this case age regression.