Not all of my ideas make it out the door as finished pieces. Sometimes, like a chicken bone, they get stuck along the way. Here is a piece that is stuck. It isn't necessarily Heimlich time, but I am not yet ready to say it is worthy of casting. I feel like if I were a painter, it might be an easier decision whether or not to take a piece through to completion. The fact that the process of creating a bronze is long and expensive, even after you have an image fully fleshed, seems to always come into play. Maybe it is just my impression that a painter would feel more spontaneous in committing to finish a piece. Whatever the case, once committed, it starts getting expensive. If I make a mold of a piece, which is more or less required in order to make it in bronze, it is all of a sudden not just my sculpting and idea time that I've invested, but a bunch more time and materials. I am happy with the posture of the camel, and I like the compartment and the vessel, but the cleanliness of the form is what is holding me back. Cleanliness has alway held me back! "Did you wash behind your ears, young man?" I would like the animal to be grittier, less sleek.
Nobody's ever accused me of being overly faithful to anatomy, or reality, or social norms, and certainly not cleanliness, but some qualities of an animal go to the essence of its being, and to neglect that is a miss. So I either figure out how to mess this image up without losing the leather-like feel of the animal, or it will go back into the melting pot and become wax inventory again. Some time away from the image has helped me identify what it is I want to see different. Even now, with the image in front of me as I hammer away at the keyboard, I am seeing ways to make a better mess of things with this camel.
