Carving from maquettes versus direct carving.

[don dougan <dondougan@zzzzzzzz>]

Hi Bill,

"The difficulty is that as I express my ideas in the foam/plaster
maquettes,
I no longer feel the same urgency to create them in stone.  I've already
done the creative part, which was creating the form, so that re-creating
the
form in stone seems like less fun."

All I can reply to that is:  Perhaps, for you, working in stone is a less
important fact
than the realization of the form itself?

"Assuming that one's goal is to create the best possible form (rather
than, for example, to have fun -- which I concede may be a superior
goal), what
are your opinions as to this multiple-maquette approach towards
sculpture?"

Maquettes are fine if you are trying to work out ideas for a client, or
for yourself
if the form is the primary goal.
For myself, the goal is at least twofold (perhaps more if I were to
analyze it further)
1) to work the material is fun
AND
2) and a voyage of discovery of the evocative potential (in terms of
form, texture, image)
in each specific piece of stone (and/or other material).

But then, I don't like to do commission work very often . . . and though
I am gratified
when a piece sells, I don't do my work for anybody but myself.  And it is
the pursuit and
the exploration that fulfills me, and I constantly am surprising myself.

My love is material and texture, and the creation of meaningful
statements of form through those qualities.
Maquettes (for these specific purposes of mine) are simply unnecessary
extra steps.

I have known many students and colleagues that need or want to use the
approach
you describe, and my observation is that most of them find their approach
just as
personally fulfilling as my approach is to me.

In the end it doesn't matter how you do it so much as that you simply do
it , does it?

Artists make art ? there are no other rules.

Good Carving to You,
Don

http://www.dondougan.homestead.com/indexdd.html