Introduction – Why be a Sculptor?

Holly in the Studio - why do it?

Why am I a Sculptor?

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog. I am going to write a few words about being a sculptor; what I do and why. This is a very good question to start with – why be a sculptor?

The answer to this question is – because I have to! I have tried to separate myself from the urge to make things, and it doesn’t work very well…

Going a bit Deeper

Let’s just look a bit more deeply into this. I have made things all my life; since I was three. I came from a creative background and I was naturally introduced to drawing and making things. I could have followed any creative direction, but working in three-dimensions was always the right vehicle for me. I think in three-dimensions, and it is the relationship between people and objects within space that really excites me.

Working with “Feel”

What I mean by this is that I feel a natural resonance between me, as an object in space, and another object. Even as I approach something immutable, such as a wall, there is a feel about the experience. I am aware of my own existence in relation to other object; and then much more so when the other object is something with further impact, such as a cliff-edge, or a sudden unexpected view, or a huge tree in the wind. Sometimes it seems as though only these more dramatic experiences are the ones that affect us, but as we know, our environment vastly effects our mood and how we feel. I make use of the effect that our spatial relationships have upon the way that we feel by arranging sculptural elements to draw out those resonances. I will explain that a little further:

The Dynamics of Scale

I work on both a very big and a very small scale. The life-sized creatures that I make are on our scale, and so we can walk amongst them directly and experience the dynamic that I am talking about. When I make very small sculpture I am invoking another reality; we can see the scenario and imagine ourselves there, and the arrangements between the elements and characters of the sculpture are available to impact us as if we were with them. We feel what is going on in the dynamic because we are able to imagine ourselves there, and imagination is such a valuable asset.

Resonance

How much more resonance there is when the other object that is existing in space with me is animate – another creature, or, further to that, another human. When I make sculpture I am making use of resonances that we can experience between one person and another as objects and as emotional beings within a shared physical space. I am drawing on the fact that we have innate understanding about what a relationship between people looks like as it plays out, and I am using this to suggest universal subtleties of experience.

More to Say!

I have not entirely covered the question – why be a sculptor – so I will return to that next time. Look out for my next blog in the same place in a fortnight’s time.

Objects in Space - Playing with Scale!

(Holly and a sculpture the same size in the landscape.)