You cant handle the truth.

Here are two pictures of my finished elephant sculpture. I have had this elephant sculpture on my mind ever since Bro Tolutau told me the story in college. I have thought of many different versions of it over the years, including covering the elphant with people completely. However for this one I wanted to keep it simple, I used just one person to emphasize the enormity of the elephant. I was flipping through an old sketchbook from six years ago and I was suprised to see that this was not a new idea but one that I had forgotten I had had. I was startled to see how closely the drawing matches the sculpture because I didnt reference it conciously in any way.

I entered it in the county fair and it got first place for sculpture, (I think it was the only sculpture there). They usually have drawings and photos, and even paintings, but not much in the way of sculpture. The ladies who registered it for the fair asked if it was made from a kit. I got a call from the local paper and they asked me a few questions about my process and inspiration. They included a couple of paragraphs about it in the last issue. Its funny I have been here for seven years but only recently has my art migrated outside the classroom. Its the second time in four months that my art has been mentioned in the local paper. I guess Im just less busy now that my degree is finished.

at the bottom is a picture of my local clay sculpture which I am excited about and disappointed at the same time. It cracked deeply durring the firing. From what I have been reading this is a shrinkage issue which can be remedied by adding another less plastic (shrinkable) clay, or by adding grog. I dont want to add another clay because I really like the idea of a sculpture made completely from this area. So I will have use grog, which means crushing up the some of the clay in dry form, firing it and adding the fired gravel to the wet clay. Which is more work but thats life. I am really excited about the color of the fired clay it is a deep earthy orange. In its raw state it was an uninspiring brown, To put it bluntly, as my son remarked, "it looks like poop".  When I opened the kiln and saw this beautiful color I was almost giddy. I dont know why but this local clay really excites me. I am in the process of making more, hopefully I will  improve my results. I will keep you posted.