Women in Art 278 Magazine February 2014 | Page 37

Any sculpture piece I am working on waits patiently for me to return to working it. Sometimes in working on a piece of wood or stone I have a preconceived plan for the piece. More often I listen to the stone or piece of wood and allow it to take me where it would. Working with bronze is a very different sculptural process involving several processes and I have to have a fairly defined plan for the finished piece before I start. The clay or wax used to begin the process is malleable and a lot of fun to work. The process from soft clay to wax to molten bronze is almost magical. Many things can go wrong in making a sculpture. A stone or piece of wood though quite hard is also very fragile and can be easily fractured. A piece in wax or clay can be changed many times before it is finished. I find this work a metaphor for life. Some of us appear hard on the outside but may be very fragile within and we can all change.