Professional Seminar - Creative Practice - 4

I have been sculpting/cleaning up “Angel of Serenity” for a couple weeks and I still have at least a week more of cleaning and sculpting on the water in particular, the leaf wings are fine, I have not needed to touch them.  This cleaning/sculpting process had been a time of patience, slowing down and reflecting. The water clay strips I feel have messy edges and small globs of clay all over from my finger prints when I first formed the water and the clay was sticky.   It does feel like the water to me because everywhere I look it needs cleaning, I just keep cleaning and cleaning, never ending like the ocean. I have not been in a hurry because I know in order to capture the expression of peace I have to encounter every inch of the creating experience. What has made this process challenging is that I left my pottery/sculpting tools at home in AZ while I am here in FL.  I literally have hundreds of these tools so my thought has been to get creative with other tools that I do have access to here.  At first after many hours and it still looked messy to me, I realized that I just needed to go buy the right tool so I could get it done quicker and correctly. However as I have been engaging in the process, I noticed that even though everywhere I looked it still needed to be cleaned, the angel was progressing to a more finished stage.  I also began to brainstorm on what tool to use to get it cleaned up how I wanted, and I decided to use a small dry semi stiff paintbrush to brush crumbs off, smooth the small globs and rough edges.  The paintbrush works well it adds softness yet cleans and because of its flexibility I am able to actually begin sculpting the edges and shapes within the clay strands.  I had a breakthrough in the sculpting aspect while using the paintbrush, I was reminded of what the waves look like when they peak and crash and I began to capture similar shapes and the feeling the waves have as they move within the ocean.  I am now seeing every nuance of the piece as I continue to go around smoothing and sculpting each shape of the water/body of the angel.  The angels character, expression is starting to come forth as I continue to mold and shape her.

Here are some creative pictures of the Angel of Serenity.  I also have included some pictures of a second angel I recently began and it’s process thus far. It is in its beginning rough awkward stage before it is shaped and leaves added.

Needing to be cleaned and shaped.

Top view of the back