Sculpture

For the next two weeks I will be working on the new sculpture of Jenna, please see previous posts. Tomorrow we will be picking up her armature in Austin. Then this weekend begins the process. Though I welcome the apprentices help. I think I will ask everyone not to come to the studio in the next few days, so that Jenna and I can have some quality time. I expect by this time next week she will be close to being finished. Yes, this is a quick turn around for a life-size sculpture.

The photographs are xeroxed and enlarged
I have Jenna music sent by her parents
I have her beautiful dress and some of her toys.

Jenna’s grave site service was last weekend. It is appropriate that we should begin to bring that angel to life through this work of art. A creative endeavor made possible through the love and assistance of her family. The play date is set!

The box of persona effects is set out on a black piece of velvet. My chair is pulled up to the table as I ponder the photographs. The chair is my own daughter Fisher Price wooden high chair, something that she used as a child and I continue to use in my studio. It is my gauge for weight gain and width of my own hips. “I wonder what Jenna’s high chair was like?” I wonder a lot about Jenna. The moment I sit down at the table and pick up the items, the emotions begin.

I put in the CD sent by Jenna’s mom, songs that she played to, and songs that will be played at her service. ” An now the time is near…” My Way is playing on the CD and as I look at the pictures of the family their happiness. Then the gateway is open between the connections I have with Jenna’s mom and the tears and sadness begin to flow. My heart aches to hold a child I have never known.

I have gone through this process long enough to know this is a very strange occurrence, picking up the feelings of my client that are opened up because of our emotional bonds (see former posts).

It has taken me years to learn how to control the emotions, during the process of sculpting posthumous sculpture, as they feel they are mine, they could quickly overwhelm me. “Not mine.” I hear myself whispering deep inside, but just enough.

I feel as if I am testing the waters, allowing myself to touch and be touched, but only enough. Learning to say ” not mine” has given me sanity in this process. First I must recognize the feelings as not my own. Some people term this “Psychic empathy”. I don’t know what to call it, I just know it is there, and I now know how to work through it. I have written a lot about this in the book. I really do need to find a publisher for that book.

29.9 inches long. This is a measurement that has been given to me by Jenna’s mom. How tall is she while she is sitting? I look for pictures of her standing up, or being held standing up and then for her sitting down. My husband, also an artist comes down as I show him my sewing tape with 29.9″ marked off. We examine the dress, my brain switches gears and I am in another part, no emotion, just proportion, compare, compare, compare. We have decided 19 inches while seated. With this number the foam armature and structure can be built. I expect to be sculpting Jenna by Monday or Tuesday. The armature will be here and the Richard Hathaway waxes will be at the foundry. I can’t wait to play with Jenna.

While looking through Jenna’s box of personal effects the foster dog ( we foster animals from time to time, Sam short of Samantha is a big black lab puppy). Anyway… Sam came in wanting to smell Jenna’s clothes. I am so enthralled in the box, I hardly notice her at first. Then picking up a small moo can, an item from Jenna’s box, I turn it over and hear the sound of a small cow. Sam cocks her head. If Jenna were here she would be laughing so hard at Sam’s face. Again. I hear myself saying, as Sam turns her head again. We repeat this over and over and I feel I can hear Jenna giggling.

Soon I order Sam out of the studio. The game was fun, but I need to have time alone with these items. I am very possessive and don’t want anyone to touch the items until I have had my time with them, not even a very interested dog nose. I know that sounds strange. I’m not sure why I do this. I remember being short with a fellow student who tried to reach into the box of Dick Hathaway’s personal effects. It is very strange indeed.

I could not wait for the time to open it. Open a box, which was packed in tears and memories of a special person who touched so many in her 14 months on earth. It is important that I carve out just the correct time to go through this ritual. I have opened many boxes before, in creating posthumous sculpture. IT is a ceremonial event, which consists of the same things but with drastically different “feelings”. It is the feelings that I am looking for, the feelings attached to each article by the loved one, the feelings of the person that belonged to these items. The feeling and essence of the individual that I will be desperately trying to coax into the clay sculpture.

I unwrapped the dress and stocking that were carefully wrapped in paper and tucked into a plastic bag marked “Jenna’s dress” and thought about how unusual it was that my 3D model baby is wearing similar dress. Marveled at how very tiny this dress looks in person, much smaller than in the online photographs that I have seen. “Oh look at these stockings!” I declare. With there little pattern, I could almost see her little chubby legs filling out the tights. “Toes or tights”, I wonder. Tights are easier to sculpt than toes, but those toes…

Then I surprise myself as I perform a ritual that I have done with a piece of clothing from Jenna’s box, a ritual that I have done with each box of each subject that has come before Jenna—Patsy, Lucas, Jeanine and others. I raised her tights to my face and breathed in the smell. “ Is this Jenna, her home smell, or laundry detergent,” I wonder?

a pause of contemplation…

To the sculpture of Jenna. I am trying to bring the Jenna Sculpture to Main when I bring the Dick Hathaway sculpture to Vermont. That is at the end of August. The foundry reports I must have Jeanna in mold for the bronze casting by the end of this month- May. It takes a while to go through the bronze process. I have ulterior motives in that I would really like Jenna’s mom to have her before Jenna’s birthday. That way they can celebrate, maybe have an unveiling at the gravesite.

This sculpture will be done a bit differently using new technology.. stay tuned.

Here is the pose that we decided on for Jenna. Yesterday my husband helped me to create a 3D butterfly for her finger. I’m glad he did as it prompted me to take her hand out a bit further from her face. I’m going to be creating Jenna a bit differently than any other sculpture that I have done before, stay tuned for the details.