Go into the kitchen, there’s untidy brushes , dancing out of old cups again, tumbling freely into the sink. My shirts are gloriously stained, maybe there’s paint on the door handles, I don’t know- for I am too busy painting again. It’s been a long gap, at least seven years since I stopped painting. I just lost my confidence .
Making Johnny Toes seems to have awaken that confidence again ! My wife brought me a pack of acrylics a few years ago. The other day I literally tore them open. I’ve never worked in acrylics before- I used water-based oils before, but this is just like it, except much, much faster. I need to work fast, messily, using my fingers in preference to a brush often, harnessing the flow, tasting, smelling it.
Making Johnny Toes has been a glorious joy- what a discovery it is working with clay. It’s brought out my passion for bread making, for painting, for guitar playing , all that tactile indulgence except here I am modelling a head, a nose, ears, feet….NO, NO .. here I am BRINGING Rocking Johnny to life.
There was a moment, I tell you, when all of a sudden HE looked back at me.
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Yes it was and is scary!
The great thing about clay is that you can keep adding bits, sanding other bits off, it is all wonderfully creative.
BUT now, the moment I have been dreading- making his hands and fingers. I have seen what Corina’s other students have accomplished, something akin to Michelangelo's work.
Precision is called for; that’s what worries me.
But NOT nearly as much as it would have —gosh is all of this really so recent ?
Here I have been , isolated for decades in a tiny hamlet, on the remote Norfolk coast,now an active member of a puppet-making class in Ireland. Having the most amazing time!
