Every year the Otago Art Society has a demonstration weekend. This year I am one of the coordinators. Now organizing artists can be a bit like herding cats, we don’t read instructions properly, we forget things, turn up late or not at all, can be a bit precious about our artworks……..
Herding guinea pigs might be apt, those little things are fast, very hard to herd, they zip all over the place and just vanish.
There were once some guinea pigs that were released accidently and three big guys spent some time ducking and diving under and over shrubs recapturing them, only the thought of a broken-hearted little girl keeping them on task. ( I have cute stories, despite my artwork being filled with monstrosities and gnashing teeth)
Happily, our fantastic group of artists are all very organized, leaving me free to sort myself.
For me, this means pre-making lots of body parts. Making paper Mache sculptures has a lot of long tedious steps, so to avoid having people come and watch me make toes or paper Mache balls, then watch them drying I have to have a lot ready for the fun stuff.
The fun stuff for me is the putting together of the body parts, getting the legs attached, the technicalities of getting the balance right, which way will it be looking?, is it a bit aggressive or woeful?
What comes after, the cloth and glue “skin”, paint and the fur or jewelry is more “window dressing”, where I’m working to enhance the sculptural shape.
