Two from The Clark, Degas

The Clark had a free admission day on Easter. I took photos of my favorites. I'll start with two juxtaposed works, Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen, and Portrait of a Man both by Edgar Degas.

Dia Beacon then Hudson River gawking

This is a view of one of the giant sculptures on view at Dia in the lower level. A friend invted me on this excursion, and rather than wait around all day for primary results I thought, why not a day trip.  You can walk inside these metal pieces and if you sing a little the echo is stunning.  Later we stumbled into the parking lot of the Beacon train station which is right on the Hudson River. On this balmy Feb. day I needed no coat, hat or gloves - but ice was still in the river from last weeks -9 temps. Weird. We later had an early dinner at Max's on Main in Beacon. Great day.

Sculpture in clay, from a live model

This is a larger sculpture f(or me I mean) - about 14 or 15 inches high. I made it during a class at Wooster Community Art Center quite a few years ago,. The instructor was Janice Mauro who does a lot of cool work with figures in enclosures, and with patinas that have an incredible depth.  We had a live model for the class. I had previously sketched a live model before but working in three dimensions was quite different.  This has some cracks in it now. The back of the base is broken, as is one hand. I still like the lines though.

I also took a class at Wooster with Alex Shundi, but in that class we worked with terra cotta clay. Shundi is another great instructor. I have fond memories of both of the classes I took at Wooster. I wish the center was still open.

Polymer Face – Sad-Eyed Man

I used the vignette function in iPhoto to focus on the face of this sad=eyed fellow with his doubtful look. The sculpture is polymer, mounted on a stone tile. It's one of dozens of polymer faces I created around the year 2000. Each is different.  I signed the photo in Picnick on Picasso.

Oddities: The British Invasion 40 Years Later

This incredulous expression, on an aging brit face with pursed lips and plentiful bags under crossed eyes - is worn by one of my polymer clay sculptures currently hanging in the Artwell Rocks Show in Torrington. The colors are acrylic and permanent ink pens mostly. The hair is a doll wig..... The theme was music. So this is the British Invasion, 40 years later.....

NaPoWroMo #30 - The Cleansing Ritual

NaPoWriMo #30

The Cleansing Ritual

Naked, the poet,
indiscreet, uncovers
by lamplight,
her lush rhythms meet
traverse-ing the stanza
with an expanse of skin
ink-stained and thoughtful,
- let the poem begin.

- Mar "Mistryel" Walker
This 30 poems 30 days thing has been fun. Loved the prompts. I need a week off, then I might start again. The photo is of a sculpture of mine that lived in Dedham MA. (a very low res picture altered in an early photo editing freebe.)

Slam Sculpture: You Gave My Poem A Two?

Opinion differs wildly and widely on what is meritorious or not....

In a poetry "Slam"  - a competitive poetry reading scored like the Olympics, there is a panel of judges who rate each poem from 0-10. It's supposed to be half for the poem itself, half for the performance - though that is pretty much tossed away in practice.

 In that spirit, this person is appalled that his slam poem/performance has been scored as a TWO out of TEN by one of the judges.....

 This sculpture is of polymer clay, painted and mounted on a stone tile.  It's better then ten years old and is owned by poet Faith Vicinanza.

Another face in polymer

Fog like cold smoke hugs the landscape this morning. A blood sun begins to burn through it now - the light is changing, a reluctant warmth rises in the air.

Grief is a fog that lingers for years. Visited my father's grave and also the grave of Rob Ayotte this past weekend.  (They are in the same cemetery. ) You hardly ever  know what the weight of a person is for you until you try to make do without them...   Some people leave a rend in the fabric of things.

The face is polymer clay It's of no one in particular.

It's resting on a wrinkled pedestal made of cement color pinkish like the polymer.

I read an amazing fact last night: in a recent month there were 2700 people PER DAY  who were losing homes to bank foreclosure.

patchwork - a crazy life...

I think my life has been something of a patchwork like the colors on this sculpture. It's been an extended juggling event. Still, I have dropped a lot of plates over 5 decades. You can't go back. You have to start from where you are and figure how to go forward with joy. Selah and hi ho!

This is one of my small scale sculptures. It's gessoed, air-dry clay with oil paints on the surface over the gesso. It was not meant to be provocative at all, just a dramatic pose. There is a bit of gloss medium on top of it all as well.

Sleeping nymph in various forms

This began its life as a sculpture I made in a class with Alex Shundi at Wooster Community Art Center. I later painted it, photographed in an arrangement with dried leaves and flowers.

.Then I took a digital photo, pulled it up into Corel Painter 10.5 where I softened the focus  then added the greenery. In higher resolution version it looks like you are looking through water and the greenery is in the foreground or floating at the surface. I also added some long locks. I do like the result enough to use it as desktop once in a while.

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getting a head

This is a picture of another sculpture, a self-portrait I made in Shundi's class at Wooster. At the time I originally posted this on my Gallery blog (which I am slowly merging with this one) this head sat on my desk at the Redding Pilot where it reportedly "creeped out" my fellow reporter Maggie Caldwell (who is now the editor of the Easton Courior). She refered to it as my 'death mask.' Hope not

The picture was taken at my old New Milford apartment, on the third floor. The pattern visible above the head, is formed by white lines in the parking lot below. This photo was featured on the splash page of old version of The Metaphoratorium.

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Poetry poster based on a sculpture

This post was originally made on my Gallery blog on 2/3/07:


A few years ago, I took a sculpture class from the eccentric artist Alex Shundi at the Wooster Community Art Center.

The sculpture to the left was my project or one of my projects in class, and was done from a live model. On the right  is a poster for the Wednesday Night Poetry Series created entirely in Painter Essentials 3 from this same photo of the sculpture. The poster is really a digital collage. The materials are the WNPS logo (the chair) photos of the poet and his various books, etc. A lot of changes were obviously made to the photo. After arranging the collage materials, I did a bit of drawing over them to create the over all effect.

This is the first poster in that series that was created entirely by digital means. Early posters were a long series of hand-glued collage, drawing, then scanning printing, drawing more with digital effects also applied. The poster was for a reading (several years ago) by poet Charles Rafferty at the Wednesday Night Poetry Series.
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Sculpture: seated figures

Both of these greenware sculptures were made in separate classes I took at Wooster Community Art Center a few years ago, one taught by Janice Mauro (may not be the right spelling) and the other by Alexander Shundi. The figure on the right, I took back to the school after it cured and it was fired in the kiln there. It became more or less white in the firing process. It's out on an end table in the living room. The one on the left took a fall here as dry greenware. Limbs flew. The poor guy fell apart. Both were made in classes with a live model.

Scultpture reclines with glass of milk

This sculpture was photographed, not next to a granite pillar, but on my desk next to a glass of milk. It's all low res, shot with an early computer cam, but pretty accurately shows the work which is in unfired clay. Drop it in a bucket of water and its gone. The problem is, I kept several different types of clay. Since I am off-again, on-again at my various hobbies, by the time I made this piece, I had already lost track. I am fairly sure it can be fired, but the proper cone is unknown. Organized people would label all this stuff as they work. I suppose I will have to talk to someone knowledgeable and get some advice on this. It's been curing for over ten years.

head in hand watching the world roll

I have always liked this impossible photo of a head I made in Sculpty. No, I didn't use a mold.

I've made a series of heads, some mounted, some painted. To the right is the sculpture in its original flesh-toned material. Some how though, I prefer the black and white photo.