Awakening

Re-sculpted in glass

Awakening is a sculpture I completed several years ago. It had been on extended gallery exhibition and recently returned. After the lengthy separation, I was looking at it with a new and critical perspective. It was good, but I felt I could sculpt and finish it better. So I re-sculpted it.

This kind of action is fraught with mental distress. I believe artists, myself among them, are seldom satisfied (if ever) with our work. So the question, always, is “Do I tinker with the work? Mess with it? Take a chance of destroying it?“

In the case of Awakening, the possible destruction factor was extreme. To sculpt in wax, as I do for all my original cast glass pieces, allows the creative advantage of wax-on, wax-off. To tinker with a finished lead-crystal cast glass piece? Using a Dremel grinder that sends vibrations throughout the sculpture? Certainly never having considered such a venture? Well, of a certainty, there be dragons ahead!

Human-esque glass sculpture – The Original

Taking a curve and bending it back on itself is what I do. I love the flow and feel of the undulation. That movement was an important structural element in this original version of Awakening. I saved these two photos for you to see what I “saw” and enjoyed when I first released the piece — an almost human-esque figure stretching upward, greeting a red dawn. A big stretch and the day began. A tension and simultaneously palpable serenity.

Creating and Re-creating this piece

Wax sculpture, glass from foundry, finished glass, re-sculpted glass