That was hard! But so much better than even more death and disabling illness. It feels never ending - and so the mind turns to what I am missing - the everyday - the calm wisdom of the ordinary. I tried my hand with Sculpey - polymer clay that fires in a domestic oven so long as you haven't built too big. I guess I could use a kiln... well somehow I had all these wine bottles and I made them into lockdown companions
A bit of a crowd to stop me feeling lonely.
Right to left you can see "Maeve" I'm trying to find wisdom in this? Well good luck with that. Then a piccolo bottle - was that a sparkling white? "Love me Tender" and behind that "Mr. Braun" then poor "Maurice" just clinging to the only comfort left to him. "Wilhelmina" is no nonsense but "Gently" is more compassionate - after the George Harrison song. "Beat" is playing for the extinction rebellion - while we hide is the wild world under attack or fighting back? "I.See.You" - I spent a terrifying night looking at the Burnett Report - and fearing for the calculations that lead us to the knowledge that our actions have consequences - deathly ones. And then "Unity" vertical drinking hah! - whoever heard of it before? Are we divided in our unity or united in our solitude?
I stopped at nine.
I've had molds taken off them. The molding process did a bit of damage so the originals can be displayed but not sold... but the bronze! The bewitching bronze! Not to mention the masterful Mal Wood working the patina!
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| "Unity" detail |
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| "Unity" at the foundry |
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| "Unity" in bronze |
And while locked down I considered the trials and tribulations my forebears went through - my great grandmother had six children... but only my nana and great aunt went on to have families. With that inheritance came a sprig of rosemary - a cutting of a cutting of a cutting... of the plant by my great grandmother's gate. Great-uncle Herbert wore a sprig in his buttonhole when he went to Gallipoli and never came home. So to honour the past - and something that has been handed down from mother to daughter - I made a stamp for the polymer clay:
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| The official name for rosemary is Rosmarinus officinalis - dew of the sea. I had no qualms about feminising it. |
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| without the mess and in different relationships |
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| The molding process cost some damage... I will repair it sometime... but here they are at home |
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| And on show at Herring Island with white and red wine bottles to indicate the process |
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