Continued work on Light of Hope and Healing

This is the front of the little boys shirt - I am pressing a section of clay into place.

I smooth down the clay of the boys shirt with my fingers.

I'm defining the little boy's belt with a wood tool.

Individual folds of the hand are made from coils of clay and pressed into place

This is the back of the mans hand, removed so that it can be more fully detailed.

Defining the little boys show with a small loop tool.

The sculpture showing the little boy from the back.

A cow sillouetted against the evening sky.

For a contrast in scale, this is an inchworm on my hand.

I have no idea what kind of plant this is. Ideas anyone?

With the warming temperatures,the leaves are just beginning to open

Home of the Innocents monuments

I am creating two sculptures that will be placed in Cave Hill Cemetery to mark the grave of a
Sister Emily Cooper, an Episcopalian Nun who was the primary caretaker of Home of the Innocents of Louisville,KY and the as yet unmarked graves of some 200+ children. Home of the Innocents was originally an orphanage from the late 1800s - 1920s.
The photo below shows Sister Emily Cooper's grave site.

The sketch below shows a preliminary concept for the monument that will be placed at her grave. The monument symbolizes her important work with the children (lifting the child) and ultimate spiritual guidance (the dove). The concept and design for this piece is that of Don Lawler, though I worked out the sketch. It will be more fully developed in 3 dimensional form. This is the site for the Children's monument.
This is the design for the Children's site. It represents Sister Emily Cooper shaking out a blanket upon which are incised images of butterflies. At the end of the blanket the butterflies are becoming 3 dimensional. This symbolizes the journey of the children through her care (represented by the blanket) to their spiritual release (represented by the butterflies taking flight). The names of the children will be carved upon the granite plinth.This is the clay model or maquette for the monument which will be placed at Sister Emily Cooper's grave site. The skirt is fuller and has more movement than the original sketch. Also she has full sleeves.

Here the sculpture is laid out using the original sketch for the main armature. Plumbing pipe is used to form the armature.

The metal armature.Foam is added to the armature.

Next comes Rock

I met Don Lawler in 1991 when he was set up at a fair selling stone sculptures with his then partner, Bobby Howard.

"Wow!" I thought. They were making and selling sculptures made of stone. Maybe I could learn to carve stone!

No more piles of paper clippings, endless folding of paper, sore fingers from scissors. Stone didn't have to be protected in a case like paper. Months of work wouldn't be ruined because it got rained on.

Of course I discovered that stone has it's own unpleasant qualities, like weight (150 lbs. a cubic foot) unending amounts of dust ( it gets in everything and goes everywhere - it took down two of our computers) and it can be annoyingly slow as you only work stone one way, by removing material, take too much off,

well, that's too bad. So it's carve, look, carve, look from this angle, with a mirror, on and on. But overall it's a lot of fun.

This sculpture is the Waking Muse which is an earthwork and stone sculpture at the Prairie Center for the Arts in Schaumburg, IL. This sculpture was done with my partner, Don

Lawler.

How I discovered the world of sculpture through 4 mediums

This blog is about the various sculpture mediums -Rock, Paper, Scissors(bronze) and clay that I have utilized over the years.

First, how it all started. It started with paper. It was the work of paper sculptor Ajin Noda in the Magazine How that first inspired me to create 3 Dimensional works in paper. Using Mi-tientes paper, Elmers glue and scissors, I created various paper sculptures. Some of them were created
as illustrations. The one shown here was created for Presbyterian publication aimed at young people. It illustrated an article about youths and spirituality. The art director on the project was Kevin Darst. It was photographed by Geoff Carr.

The trouble with paper sculpture is that it is enormously time consuming and very fragile. It must be protected from moisture and dirt. I spent years doing paper sculpture until I discovered Rock.