Amélie moule: novembre

17 décembre 2013

Chers lecteurs, voici les tant-attendues péripéties d'Amélie en moulage, édition de novembre!

"I hope this finds you well!

I've been meaning to send you my little November newsletter for a while now, but I've been caught up in the Xmas crafts fair and down time has been scarce lately...  The fair is a mentally draining experience to say the least - as I'm sure you know.  Today I took a much deserved day off, slept 12 hours, went for a walk in the fresh snow, watched an old Italian movie, cooked 4 different things, ate like a pig... and now next on my list is you, finally!  (And then next is a glass of wine.  Or two.)

Let's start with some entertainment, shall we!  This month my choice of music actually isn't about the music at all, but about the video - an old classic that I just recently discovered and totally fell in love with.  Pure burlesque, weird and fun and vintage and sexy and awesome.  Enjoy!

(Wow... it just dawned on me that I like transvestites and sumo wrestlers.  No wonder I "can't find the right guy"!!)

Alright, enough with handsome men in corsets and suspenders... let's get down to business.

As hectic as November was schedule-wise, I felt very relaxed when I was in the molding studio - which is somewhat unusual for me - and I think it showed in my work.
My main goal for the month was to come up with a piece for the "Emerge 2014" contest.  And I did.  And I'm proud!  Here it is:

It's been a really fun piece to make I have to say, which pushed me to try a bunch of new things including flower pot casting (... was about time!).  I was rather sceptical at first when I saw that big brown block coming out of the mold, but coldworking worked its magic and it came out nice in the end!

I should get news around mid-January for the contest, so fingers crossed...

Quick aside: waterpiks are AWESOME.

For the rest of the month, I mostly worked on finishing a wax sculpture that I'd started back in July, depicting a woman and two octopuses doing, erm............ stuff.  (But nothing to worry about hey, I didn't come up with that idea myself, I took it from a famous 19th century Japanese woodblock print.)
It's a fairly complex project, with tons of assembled elements and tentacles all over the place and Japanese text in the background and fine details and undercuts everywhere...  (Why oh why am I doing this to myself?)  But, once again, it's been fun, and I'm delighted to see it almost finished.  Hopefully I'll be able to cast it in glass by the end of January.  In the meantime, here are a few pictures of the wax model, along with the original woodblock print:

And just because I know that spacetime can be curved, I decided to squeeze in a third project in there and finish my garlic perfume bottle (the one that failed back in September).
And I'm so glad I did.
It turned out to be such a weirdly attractive piece...

"Love the ugly child", as you often say! 

I think the best thing about November has been that, perhaps for the first time since I started working with glass, I felt like I was in control - technically and emotionally.  And that, to me, is a turning point.  Of course I know there are plenty more tough and frustrating moments to come (it is glass, after all), but I feel like I am finally starting to build up some artistic self-confidence.

So, you know... hallelujah and all that!

And on that note... time for my glass of wine!

Take care, and have a very happy holiday season,

Amélie "