Sculptures

I took a class in clay portraiture at the CCCAE (Cambridge MA) because I thought it would help with my life drawing and my paintings of figures. For a couple of years, I sculpted with other artists in the studio of sculptor Sholeh Regna (Somerville MA), who taught the original class I took. Working in clay was an unexpected joy for me as an artist. It is a very tactile experience. If you’ve ever seen Bernini’s clay models for his marble sculptures (owned and sometimes displayed by the Harvard Art Museums), which have his fingerprints and gestures, you know what I mean. Although not firing the clay means the works are fragile, unfired clay sculptures have been found from 13,500 years ago in the Le Tuc d’Audoubert cave in France. Unfired clay is also used for sculptures in much of South East Asia and Central America. In Bhutan, clay statues are highly prized, some assert even more than those made of bronze.