YAY DUST

[pwwhitley@zzzzzzz]

George...I think you took my plantation remark in the tongue-in-cheek spirit intended.

I find it difficult to work in clay...it's too yielding.  I fiddle with this detail, change that one, never satisfied and ending in frustration.  Steel...and now stone...suits me better because of its resistance.  At some point my will submits to the material and all is well.  Each finished piece is an instructive compromise that leads to the next effort.

Similarly, I think it would be difficult for me to provide a blueprint or instructions for someone else to execute.  I have done that, but the actual sculpture was the maquette...the blueprints were taken from it and scaled up.

I agree with Clive...it's apparent when someone forces their idea onto the material.  The discordant result is why we recoil at woodgrain in plastic siding or just the idea of plastic clapboard, for that matter, with or without the grain.

Sculpture is often presented as either additive or subtractive.  I think a lot of you stonecarvers might agree that submissive and resistant, or some such, might be better descriptors.  At least they would be useful terms for making distinctions.

Philip