“You’re so talented!”

This is a common sentence you hear as a professional artist. I do take it as a sincere compliment but to be perfectly honest with you all it also totally gets under my skin. What bothers me is the failure of the English language at that moment. 

It reminds me of how we use the word “love” in English. It’s too broad. “I love you!” makes sense and works grammatically but so does “I love these shoes!” for example. And there are many other ways the word “love” is used but I won’t continue on this example for fear it will become a rabbit trail.

The problem with someone saying, “you’re so talented” is that it infers that you came out of the womb with the level of ability that you are displaying now. And if you are a true artist this is false to your own personal narrative. The truth is you are/were talented BUT the amount of hours that went into perfecting your techniques is what made you and your art what it is today. Yes, talent factors into making your art decent to look at but the years of blood, sweat, and tears is what gives you the possibility to make your art great. 

I have racked my brain trying to decide how to change this complement. The best I have come up with is: “You’re so skilled!” or perhaps both “You’re so skilled and talented!” Although I lean towards taking “talent” out of the equation completely because of its over use. 

Comment below if you like my use of the word skilled in this context or if you have any other savvy words for us to use to change this aspect in the English language that plagues all of those in the arts. 

Stepping down from my short soapbox now. 

Thanks for reading!

With much love,

Your friendly neighborhood sculptor.

Faces are so interesting

I love faces, any kind of face. No matter the size, shape, color, symmetry, asymmetry, or age of the face, it’s all freakin’ awesome. If I’m hanging out with a group of people I have to keep myself from getting distracted by comparing all of the unique features everyone has. It’s an awesome game that I have to be careful with because I can completely lose the thread of the conversation if I’m not careful (adding to the eccentric artist stereotype). Also, don’t get me started on how distractingly fun twins are!

In my own creations, my two main loves are deep conceptual work that portrays universal emotions and struggles, and portraits that reveal someone’s heart through their unique features and quirks. Now and then I have been delightfully surprised when a magical combo of the two coincide. An example of this in my work is The Discord of Harmony (see image below). The concept for this piece started while I was studying Frida Kahlo’s life. When Frida was 19, she was in a terrible bus accident where she was gruesomely impaled. When this happened somehow all of her clothes were ripped off and she was covered in gold paint/flakes—a painter on the bus had spilled it. The imagery of someone so completely in pain yet splashed with gold is a strong illustration of the dichotomy between pain and beauty, between visual horor and visual wonder that is embedded in this life. 

I had to create. 

I decided to attempt a portrait, not actually of Frida, that (as stated above) got to the heart of a person but also accomplished the concept I was attempting to convey to the viewer. I believe that I have achieved it with this sculpture, and as a result it is one of my favorite pieces. It was an “ahaa” breakthrough moment for me, bringing my two figurative sculpture loves together.

As I mentioned in my last post I was about to head to the National Sculpture Society’s Conference at Chesterwood in Massachusetts to compete in a portrait sculpting competition. I got there and was delighted to hang out with/sculpt with my fellow competitors! I don’t have that many opportunities to sculpt with my contemporaries since I’m not in a huge city like many. 

In the 4 hour competition we were given the guidelines that we needed to make it our own, as in, not an exact likeness of the model was required but instead that we infused our own artistic personalities into the piece. Something that could be accepted into a gallery show and not just be a likeness. In 4 hours this is a very tall order. I don’t know how well I accomplished this but I worked my sculptor fingers off trying to make this happen. And ever since this event, I have been analyzing how to better infuse my artistic personality into all future work. I don’t think I have an exact answer/formula to make this happen but I intend to continue the attempt no matter how much time I have to create. Because when that magical feeling of a successful conceptualized portrait strikes, I can even feel it when I sculpt. There’s nothing quite like it. 

So if you’re ever in a group of people having a conversation with me, you might notice me looking swiftly back and forth between faces. This is the look of an artist analyzing facial features attempting to imagine those faces as interesting portrait busts and maybe, just maybe that artist might be at the cusp of creating a conceptualized portrait.

Thanks for reading!

With much love,

Your friendly neighborhood sculptor.

“Comparison is Odious”

It’s blog time, ba-BAM!

It has begun, I have joined the throngs of my fellow terrans who have started a blog. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and it felt like a great time to finally bite the bullet because I’m about to embark on an art adventure and I’d love to share my thoughts about that. So this is the first of a monthly (now and then bi-weekly) blog that will be primarily about my art, frequently about my personal life, and on occasion about my dog, Remus, the extremely sweet and easily anxious four legged fur baby that dwells with us. 

So here it goes, welcome to Maria’s magical blog of wonder, enter at your own risk…

“Comparison is Odious”

One of my wise siblings once told me, “Comparison is odious.” It has stuck with me as a mantra of sorts. I find it so easy to enter this downward spiral of feeling inadequate when I see the skill and accomplishments of other artists. Everyone struggles with comparison but, I believe, visual art is one of the easier places to feel lacking when you can have such striking physical evidence of someone's perceived superiority. 

Obviously these feelings ebb and flow but I’ve found comparison looming it’s ugly, sneering head over the last couple of weeks. The reason for that is I’m about to head to the National Sculpture Society’s Annual Conference where I will be creating a portrait bust in 4 hours alongside other “young sculptors” (ages 18-35) in front of a live audience. I have done this once before in 2016 so you would think I’d be less nervous. Nope. Despite my increased experience as a sculptor and the fact that I know what to expect, I'm still pretty nervous.  

So now I’m gonna preach this to myself and you all can listen in: “Comparison is odious!” Work your butt off trying to make that 4 hour sculpture good BUT, win or lose, freakin’ enjoy yourself and get to know and love your fellow competitors because there is such a small handful of us that have this level of passion for sculpting the human form and you want to be friends with those bad-ass nerds!

Ok, I’m done yelling common sense at myself, thanks for listening in. 

Wow, for real, that totally helped! Now I have space to tell you all how freakin’ excited I am about the conference! It’s in Stockbridge MA at Daniel Chester French’s studio up in the Berkshires (he is the one who sculpted the epically huge Abe Lincoln on The Mall in DC). This will be my third time at the conference and I’m always fired up post conference to come home with oodles of inspiration. Spending time together with my fellow sculptors gives me a surge of art creating energy. 

But also, please wish me luck and calm nerves. 😁

Thanks for tuning in!

With much love,

Your friendly neighborhood sculptor.