Saturday, October 7, 2006
Doll Workshop - Part 3
Saturday saw us gathered bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to start hands and feet. It seems to me that since I have had two of each for 50 plus years that I would be familiar enough with them to aid in the process of sculpting them. One would think that until one tied.
Jack made it as easy for us as any teacher could and watching him work was amazing. He could turn five sausages into a graceful hand with his own dexterous digits quick as a flash. A tiny upturned index finger and my boy elf became a girl. Tilt the palm back and it becomes an action pose, tilt them forward and the hand is passive and at rest.
Hands male and female, hands young and old, there is enormous expression in just moving a pinky finger a fraction of an inch. Bake the clay and the hand and its expression is frozen in time.
Then we made the shoes and much like clothes, shoes make the person – cowboy boots, Elvin slippers, high-heals and ballet toe shoes. We sculpted, baked and painted. In the course of our day an American Indian, a grand-father, a girl child and a Victorian lady started to take form.
It took all of Saturday to bring form to these expressions of humanness. These pieces of our bodies – the hands do our work, caress our lovers and hold our children. The feet with which we take our first steps and then skip, and run, and dance – carrying us on our journey through a lifetime.
And my Elvin-fairy whispered to me “don’t be afraid.”
Tomorrow we would, as they say in the business seminars, tie it all together but tonight I will be going home. There is no internet access in the Best Western I stayed in on Friday night and the Yankees are loosing so I am heading home to my own bed and my husband and my kitties and to post last nights musings and some pictures.
Doll Workshop - Part 3
Saturday saw us gathered bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to start hands and feet. It seems to me that since I have had two of each for 50 plus years that I would be familiar enough with them to aid in the process of sculpting them. One would think that until one tied.
Jack made it as easy for us as any teacher could and watching him work was amazing. He could turn five sausages into a graceful hand with his own dexterous digits quick as a flash. A tiny upturned index finger and my boy elf became a girl. Tilt the palm back and it becomes an action pose, tilt them forward and the hand is passive and at rest.
Hands male and female, hands young and old, there is enormous expression in just moving a pinky finger a fraction of an inch. Bake the clay and the hand and its expression is frozen in time.
Then we made the shoes and much like clothes, shoes make the person – cowboy boots, Elvin slippers, high-heals and ballet toe shoes. We sculpted, baked and painted. In the course of our day an American Indian, a grand-father, a girl child and a Victorian lady started to take form.
It took all of Saturday to bring form to these expressions of humanness. These pieces of our bodies – the hands do our work, caress our lovers and hold our children. The feet with which we take our first steps and then skip, and run, and dance – carrying us on our journey through a lifetime.
And my Elvin-fairy whispered to me “don’t be afraid.”
Tomorrow we would, as they say in the business seminars, tie it all together but tonight I will be going home. There is no internet access in the Best Western I stayed in on Friday night and the Yankees are loosing so I am heading home to my own bed and my husband and my kitties and to post last nights musings and some pictures.
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