Sculpture
My first sculpting experience came from digging up clay in my grandmothers backyard. There were so many colors naturally. It was a good clay too. It sun dried to a very sturdy finish. I was in the 3rd grade so i wasn’t aware of kilns yet. I was aware of the Native American artifacts we would constantly uncover while tilling the land. It fascinated me in many ways. One was the fact that another culture had existed there. The other was that I could sell the artifacts at the gift shop in the Old Stone Fort, a tourist attraction in a nearby town. I could then buy comic books.
I’m not sure if my uncle intended on me sculpting with the wax from the honeycomb chunks he would bring me from his beehives. But I did. It was my second material to learn to sculpt with. Id chew out all the honey then need my oily little fingers into it until it became nice and workable and it tasted great. Except there would often be some abandoned larva. That texture change still gives me chills of disgust. Its like a whole tragic story in a bite.
I think they still have sticker machines at movie theaters. When i was little I loved these things. Being the 80’s there was a lot of “Punk”; I got this great sticker once, I think the 4th grade, and it was a “punk” with a mohawk and a safety pin through his nose and all these earrings. I thought it was cool so i copied it. Then i learned to draw it from memory and make variations of it. I would draw it on my notebooks and then i had other kids wanting me to draw it on there jean jackets and Michael Jackson zipper jackets. I learned to draw Michael Jackson too, but that is a different story. After i really mastered this profile cartoon character. I remember clearly not being able to imagine the head turning, in 3dimension space. I remember getting some clay at school, taking it home, and sculpting this head. It was a monumental moment for me. I was 9 or 10.
We used to go to the beach every summer. We would rent a beach house and all my family and sometimes family friends would come and i was the youngest so i would often be alone. I would sculpt all day in the sand and then spend the week in intense pain as my flesh dies and my brothers and sisters try to peel off the largest sheet of skin possible.
