I had no idea what I was doing, but no matter how gangly the thing looked, I stuck with it. Once the steel frame was built, I had the idea to start building an armature around it. One huge challenge with this was the materials are not compatible. Clay shrinks as it dries and as shown in the first photo, the clay walls were cracking up. I experimented with different types of clay and decided that since I could, I'd fire it. The sculpture studio had a 'car' kiln and so with the help of a few guys we hoisted the monster in there. I think that second pic was taken after it was fired.
Since it came out in one piece I decided to do more...
.. until I had a meeting with my graduate committee. To explain what these pieces meant I created a very long, drawn out philosophical significance. They weren't buying it and this made me feel very frustrated. Since I wasn't exactly turned on by the "monsters" I liberated. After that particular meeting, I took a hammer to the first piece I did.. the one I had spent so much time on. By the time I got through with it, it was a big pile of debris in the middle of my studio. The other few pieces I did the same to, only outside closer to the rubble pile.
If at first you don't succeed... So I went back to the drawing board and came back with something I liked.
What I came back with became the basis of my MFA Show...
Also while in grad school I made a lot of pots and some figural sculpture. Below are samples of those. These ended up in their own show and most of which have also been "liberated".
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Art History Retrospect ~ Graduate School - mid to late 90's
Dinosaurs
With instructions to have fun, I took a few sculpture classes and learned how to weld. I was also very interested in the movement of figure skating and dancers and by looking at different still poses as well as action, I drew many gesture sketches. The essence of those line drawings would eventually become the three dimensional sketches made of welded steel bar frames. Those first few attempts, however, turned out more like dinosaurs.
Monique Sevenans
