Sculpture

It can’t be easy trying to pick a pose of your child that you want to represent an entire life, the emotion between two individuals or this special persons interaction with the entire world. I think for the most part both Jenna’s mom and I depend on intuition, or maybe even a little guidance from Jenna. Taking some suggestions from Jenna’s mom on a possible revision of poses I raised the head, but intuitively the hand needed to be raised. The pose is the same otherwise.

How about taking out the lower part of the headstone? It changes the feel of the sculpture entirely. Something we may or may not want to consider. When I first saw pictures of Jenna I thought, “she will be in ballet or perhaps Cirque du Soleil” She just seemed to have an intuition about her own body and expressed all emotion through it.

Looking over the few photographs that I have on my computer she is constantly raising one leg. I am really not sure how she did this without losing her balance. I guess I call it a body squeal. Her body cannot contain the joy. I gave her this same enthusiasm in the one-seated post but took out the idea of her sock and replaced it with a butterfly (represented in the poser figure as a ball). I pulled her headstone behind her a bit so as to balance her in her squeal.

Jenna’s mom often referred to the finger plays that they used to do together. I know very little about them but if I close my eyes I can picture Jenna’s enthusiasm, her verbal and body squeals. I pushed the creativity a bit further and decided to shape Jenna’s left hand in a different pose. Instead of an open hand or a pointing finger that might appear in this pose, I shaped her left hand into the sign language shape for “I love you”. As a hidden message to her family and a representation of this very precious game between mom and child.

It was down to the two poses, crawling over the headstone, and taking off the sock. Now I put more things in the mix. I don’t know if this will confuse Jenna’s parents or help them solidify the process. From past experiences of creating posthumous sculpture it usually just all works itself out.

Don’t you just love this Poser program! Making changes and seeing it from all directions is so wonderful.
If you want to see any of the photographs larger, just click on the image.

I worked on one last pose for Jenna. This one shows a 3Dimage of her trying to crawl up on a headstone and touch a butterfly (indicated as a ball on the headstone). Now it will be up to Jenna’s mom to decide on a pose. Modifications will be made as we work through the process. I have at times had epiphanies while sculpting. Changed a pose entirely even after the client and I decided on one. That happened with Patsy. Even though the client was at the photo sitting for the pose, I called them later and said, “I don’t think Patsy would sit this way.” As it turns out they felt the same thing but knew I was so far along on the sculpture they did not know if they could change it. They were relieved that I was intuitive enough to pick up on it, and glad for the change of the pose.

Last night I watched a segment on the public television station about children and cancer. I believe it was called a Lion in the House . It was difficult to watch and made you ever so grateful for your own health and the health of your children. I watched it for Jenna’s mom, for Ellie’s Mom and a recent contact of a 17 year old that died of Leukemia. These are such brave souls to have gone through such a fight. I am very honored to memorialize these individuals, to learn about their life and capture their spirit for everyone to see, to give parents “continuing bonds” through posthumous sculpture. I love my job!

Notice how each sculpture has a different feel to it? the one with her sitting on the stone alone is a startling feeling. I decided to shorten the stone to see how that would change the feel of the sculpture. I worked on the last one, with the sock, after visiting a headstone store. Believe it or not there is one right next to the Mexican restaurant that we frequent. That is when I noticed the base of some of these stones. It is unusual to have the headstone off center and I pictured her kind of leaning against the stone, the stone should also be rounded on the top. But I can’t do that in this program and would work on that in the sketch. I pictured her getting ready to have fun, to experience the tactical sensation of the grass in her toes, her toes being able to wiggle. One sock off and the other literally being pulled from her foot she is distracted by something else…. The angels! I still don’t think at this point she knows she has wings. I decided to shorten the stone, by the way I learned they need to be about 6′ thick. This give an entirely different feel to the piece. I think I like it better. It focuses on her. It also reminds me of the small grave that I visited on a photo shoot in the cemetery. There is something to be said about the littleness of the stone.

I can’t say that this technology is new, as it has been around a while. It has taken me some time to get my own hands on it and get it in my office. Usually I am sitting next to my husband prompting him, ” move this here, move that there.” It is stifling for someone who works with movement to try and direct someone else. I am thrilled finally have this in my own office. TECHNOLOGY yeah!!!

I am speaking of Poser. Poser is a program that allows you to bring a subject into a virtual reality and pose it. I took the opportunity of having this new project of 14 month old Jenna and she and I have been playing in Poser. Of course poser didn’t come with wings or a cherub or a baby. I bought these 3D models, along with several poses from Daz. The total cost was about 55.00 for those extras but was worth it as it save a bunch of time in posing. As soon as I get a chance I’ll try to put together a video on how this is done.

The wonderful part about using poser is that I can pose this beautiful model, and then take the camera and view it from all sides, just as if I was walking around the sculpture. It is a great tool. As you can see I am working with several different ideas, each seems to work into another. The one where she is sitting next to the tall memorial I had envisioned her pulling a sock off of her right foot, the other sock will already be off. perhaps in her lap or at her side. We had toyed with the idea of putting a butterfly in the piece. That would work best in the tall sculpture of her standing/climbing. Perhaps a butterfly is on the far side of the memorial headstone.

many of the details like, socks or a butterfly are to time consuming for me to put into these 3D models. But these models are great for me to be able to use in creating sketches for the client. TO SEE THE 3D MODEL LARGER, CLICK ON THE PHOTOGRAPHS