clay

Sculpture Tools: Favorite tools for creating figurative ceramic sculpture

Andy Kennedy

Some rocks, a fork, a piece of wire, a wooden baseball bat. This is a short list of Favorite Tools for creating figurative ceramic sculpture. The rocks are chunks of concrete and asphalt that fit my hands. They are rough here and sharp there. I have memorized their shapes to intuit the best rock for sculpting the clay in the gesture of the moment. When I am deep in the process, this happens without thought. My name is Andy Kennedy and a lump of asphalt has become magical to me.

I asked our Pacific NW Sculptors president, George Heath, what would he like for an article in the newsletter? His reply suggested that I write about my bat; a gray, weather beaten, wooden baseball bat. He had seen me sculpting with the bat last September at the Fall Festival for the Arts in Troutdale. We were both demo (demonstration) artists there along with Dave Gonzales. To digress a little, I really recommend being a demo artist. I have done numerous demo gigs with Pacific NW Sculptors, and being with the public and your art process at the same time can make your art more authentic, more responsive, and more real.

Dave Gonzo got a few seconds of video of me using my bat and posted it to Instagram. In the video, you will notice that I’m holding the bat in the middle of its length, where it is balanced. This allows me to toss it in the air slightly and spin it 180 degrees, like a baton. With that flip the bat adjusts from a club to a prod and there is an easy flow to the gesture. Instead of writing more about this tool or the technique of its use, I’m going to attempt to refer to the frame of mind that I have during the process. There is a temptation to say, as with the asphalt chunk, this 180 flip happens without thinking, because there was no conscious intention to flip the bat. I never practiced this trick or considered ideas such as, “Can I do this?” or “Should I do this?”

I have the sense that the thinking is accelerated and nonlinear, guided by my focus on crafting the clay figure. I am alert to states of mind that seem suspended, paradoxical, timeless, and irrational. I believe this is what allows an artist to discover new forms and meaning. This is why our work can be considered priceless, because the value of this work should not be measured by a linear metric.

There is also an elegance and solidity to linear thought. This how we engineer our work to stand up against gravity. A thought building on the thoughts that came before, as in an essay. The focus of this essay is tools. The asphalt chunk and baseball bat are both used for blunt force to shape and texture the clay, but for building structure one tool more than any other helps me to sculpt: a fork. Learning to fuse together clay pieces is a most important technical skill for building clay objects. A fork looks like a tiny hand; consider that roughening and scoring into the clay where it is to stick to other roughened clay is like creating a series if hands that reach out to each other to hold fast the two joined parts. Structural strength only results when the two halves are sufficiently blended together by force and fork. Bonus feature: most fork handles can be used as a knife to cut into clay. A common household object useful for adding and subtracting from clay sculpture; definitely a Favorite Tool.

Andy Kennedy Hosts Sculptors Group

About twenty Pacific Northwest Sculptors group members and guests gathered at the home of fellow sculptor Andy Kennedy and his partner Stephanie Buddenbaum on the evening of October 19th for the group’s monthly informal get-together.

A different member artist hosts the gathering each month.

The potluck affair began with time to get reacquainted before everyone moved on to Kennedy’s studio out back. The studio is a converted garage teeming with hundreds of clay sculptures, large and small. Kennedy spoke informally about his work, saying he has “been doing raw expression in paint and clay for years,” since the late 1980s at The Evergreen State College at Olympia, Wash, where he completed a bachelor of arts program.

“Raw” is an apt description of many, if not most, of Kennedy’s sculptures on display in his studio. They are evocative of an experience he described at Evergreen in which he created drawings from photographs of dissected cadavers.

Most of his human-form sculptures—nearly all of the large body of work in his studio is human form—possess not an unsettling quality but an aura of “one step beyond,” a view of what it is like on the other side of where we are.

Kennedy describes this in another way on his website, “Objects that inform by asking the unanswerable.” Saying that “we should all draw more,” a remark that elicited a collective murmur of agreement from the room full of sculptors, Kennedy went on to share more of his 2-D work besides the cadaver drawings at Evergreen.

Interactivity Encouraged at Sculptors Group

In his slide show, he shared examples from a mostly pastel chalk series he called “missing children drawings,” adapted from images of missing children reproduced on milk cartons in a 1980’s nationwide awareness campaign about kidnapped children. Later, he created a public installation about the missing children. Besides working in clay, Kennedy also hand-builds in concrete on armatures, sometimes adding features in wood.

He has created several larger-scale outdoor installations in concrete, “yard sculptures” that, over time, are cloaked in vegetation and become integral with the environment they inhabit.

To learn more about Pacific Northwest Sculptors group events, contact us today!

Dave Gonzo Draws Sculptors Curious About Torch Welding Sculpture

PNWS members gathered at the studio of Dave Gonzo for a hands-on experience with torch welding sculpture. The Saturday event was the monthly meeting of PNWS members and guests hosted each month at a different member’s studio. The hosting member usually discusses his or her work and demonstrates how they work.

After an opening social hour, guests got reacquainted at a potluck lunch outdoors. Next, Gonzo invited everyone inside his historic small barn studio.

Since this was to be a hands-on event for sculptors interested in learning to weld, safety was the first order of business.

Lessons in Torch Welding Sculpture Classes

Gonzo who, besides his life as a sculptor also offers welding classes, explained how oxyacetylene works, what the risks are, and how to minimize those risks. A few of his guests stepped away from the large tanks of gases as he elaborated on the worst-case scenario.

He demonstrated how to perform basic tasks such as lighting the torch, which must be done in a specific sequence, and then how to adjust the flame with just the right mix of the two gasses.

The introductory lecture over, Gonzo called for volunteers. He had set up three welding stations. Amber Metz, who joined PNWS in March, was the first to step forward.

Besides sculpting in wax, clay, foam, and mixed media, she also creates two-dimensional art in pencil, ink, paint, and chalk. Gonzo patiently guided Metz through the basic technique of using the flame called the “cone” to perform the actual welding.

Metz grasped the technique quickly, and Gonzo turned her loose to practice on her own. Chayo Wilson was next, followed by Jacque Shayne.

To learn more about Pacific Northwest Sculptors events, contact us today!