This week began with the arrival of Lisa, a third year ceramics student from the University of Westminster, who will be helping me in the studio for the next two weeks on a professional practice placement – perfect timing, in the run-in to the end of the residency. She’s already proving invaluable, as I’ve been able to unload some of the studio donkey-work (glazing, kiln packing, bat washing etc.) as well as some of the more skilled plaster casting jobs. It’s been a case of ‘in at the deep end’ as open studio day on Thursday was the busiest yet, with 51 visitors to the studio, many of them taking part in the Frankenstein project. We’ve now completed the ‘wall of fame’ – the studio partition wall is covered with ‘mug-shots’, portrait drawings and Frankenstein collage/drawings, and we’re now ready for the big climax to the public project next week, the modelling of a huge clay head in the studio.
The third small head is finished and cast, the front half based on the Indian terracotta head, the back part based on a classical marble sculpture. As these are to be the component parts of the collaged hybrid heads it now seems unnecessary to make complete heads, especially as some of the sources are incomplete anyway.
