Reflection of Military Service Sculpture
Life Size Sculpture Made from Fired Clay
In July of 2019, I was asked to give a portrait sculpting demonstration to the public by the Veteran Center in Columbus, Ohio at the Ohio State Fair. I was delighted to participate and to share my knowledge and skills with people interested in art. The program director was responsible for providing a live model, so I was expecting a veteran in uniform. Surprisingly enough, she provided me with a young vivacious woman veteran, named Hanna. She had bright red hair, piercings and tattoos, not a traditional looking soldier. So I pondered how I would link military service with this veteran, so I asked her for a photograph from basic training. I decided to have her hold a mirror which reflected a picture of her in uniform, symbolizing the reflection of military service.
After the two hour sculpting demonstration, I packed up the sculpture to further refine it in the studio. Using reference photos taken at the session, I worked on detailing the facial features. Hanna was gracious enough to come to the studio for a second sitting a week later so I could finalize the likeness.
Following that session, I began work on the body using a technique I learned in June 2019 at Arrowmont School of the Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. As I had taken a workshop from Andrea Connell on Building Big in the Kiln and this was an opportunity to test the techniques I learned at the workshop. Creating a life size sculpture has been on my bucket list for several years, but I wasn’t sure how to create it in clay then fire it. Most life size sculptures are cast in bronze which is a little expensive, about $20,000+. So this was a great starting project to experiment with.
Getting back to the process, I coiled the main torso and had it built up to the chest, when the entire piece collapsed upon itself. Ugh, two days of work down the drain, so I started over. Again when I reached the chest area the same thing happened. So I stepped back from the process and contemplated a different approach. I decided to work in smaller sections and add support walls inside the sculpture to give it more stability. The third time was a charm and I was able to build the bottom torso, let it harden slightly, add a slab for the upper torso to sit on. Thankfully this worked. Then I started to work on the legs and arms using a rolled slab for thighs, calves, upper arms and forearms. I had body parts strewn about my studio. Using the technique I learned in the workshop I attached the thighs to the torso and they collapsed, so I decided to coil the legs up to the knees, then make the bottom of the legs out of slabs since they didn’t carry any weight because this was a sitting sculpture. Then I started sculpting the hands and feet. Once all the body parts were made, I attached the legs and feet, then made the skirt. Then THe arms and hands were added last. The head is a separate piece which can be taken off, so it just sits on the neck. Once I got the sculpture to this point, I let the entire piece rest, covered in plastic for a week, then I carefully cut it apart so it would fit in the kiln. After it was cut apart, I put the pieces back together and allowed it to dry very slowly so there would be no cracking or warping in the clay. After about 8 weeks of drying, I fired the sculpture in four sessions, each session took 24 hours. After this was completed, I reassembled the sculpture, fixing any fractures and warpage that occurred during the firing. Using epoxy and Durham’s Water Putty, I was able to fix various clay failures in the firing process. The skirt blew apart so severely, that I had to remake it from a sheet and water putty.
After the sculpture was reassembled, patched and sanded, I sprayed a base coat of white primer paint over the entire sculpture. Using interior house paint that I had premixed at Sherwin Williams, I started the color block-in of the entire sculpture. I switched to oil paint for the detail work to get more realistic flesh tones. It could have been done with the house paint, but I prefer the open time that oil paints have as it makes it easier to layer and blend. With that complete, a final coat of polyurethane is applied to the entire surface of the sculpture to protect the paint from chipping.
My husband was a gem during this entire process as he made me a sculpture stand that I could roll around the studio to work on the sculpture, assisted with assemblage and put the heavy pieces in the kiln. The sculpture weighs around 150 pounds. I could have not done it without his assistance.
