Heavy Weather
‘Heavy Weather’ is a 4 piece wall hanging sculpture made during the COVID-19 lockdown to express the many conflicting feelings in attempting to create in a tumultuous time.
Mired with heavy thoughts and overthinking it becomes harder to decipher the words in our hearts.
This piece shows a woman looking down to one side. Words drip down her, mostly worn off. Her head is filled with a brain made of crumped paper and tangled black yarn threads. Golden thunderbolts stretch from this cloud of unwanted thoughts and strike the side of the head.
A hand extends holding a bowl filled with a heart struck through with a broken pencil. From the wound drips a golden ichor.
In the making ....
This sculpture was made from slabs of clay wet formed from lifecasts. Slabs are hand rolled into various sizes and shapes and are layered over one another without their edges being trimmed or blended.
Porcelainous clay was used in the construction of this piece. This type of material is known to ‘dance’ and move about when it is fired.
While most of the pieces came out of the kiln as intended with minimal warping, the chest and head piece cracked and caved in significantly. Previous to the firing, this piece was intended to be a representation of ‘The Star’, a card from the Tarot deck.
When all of the pieces were assembled again, the voice of the piece had changed. At the same time in the world the CO-VID 19 lockdown had also just begun.
At this point mixed media elements were added to steer the sculpture in a different direction that fit it’s new look.
Her head seemed heavy with thoughts, as was mine at the time. I dumped all the thoughts in my head into a jumble across several sheets of paper. When I ran out, I continued writing directly onto the sculpture itself. Using a spray bottle, I wet the sheets of paper, as well as the text on the sculpture, and let them run until they were dripping and barely visible. The paper sheets were crumpled up and bound with black yarn.
The tangled web of thoughts was secured into the head. I formed lightning patterns by bending gold aluminum wire. They strike from the brain cloud onto the exposed side of the face.
Two hearts were sculpted to be added to the bowls. The large cracked heart painted with a red lacquer and then finished with buffing wax. The dripping heart was finished with an enamel paint to turn it into a glossy golden ichor.
