I use the word "failure" deliberately; it is a strong word and it can stop us in mid-stride. In this context I am using it to mean a sculpture with one or more significant faults as a 'product' of my sculpting work.
Sculpting is a creative process. I agree with Seth Godin who writes that one of the hallmarks of any creative process is that it involves the risk of failure (The Practice, 2020). There is also quite a lot of evidence that we learn more from failures than we do from successes. I sculpt to enjoy myself and to learn.
Alf
Please be in no doubt, this is one of my favourite sculptures. I had a great five days at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in summer 2017 on a stone carving workshop where I made him.
I like the strength and serenity of his face and he makes me smile when I look at him. Those are some of the reasons why he is the logo image for this website. He also looks good in the hat and I have learned a lot from carving him.
So what are the problems?
First of all I didn't rough out the profile of his face effectively - I think you can really see that in this second image. Marcia, our tutor, advised me to and I started with the chin, neck and mouth, but for some reason I stopped taking out enough stone at the tip of his nose. So his nose is almost vertical and his eyes and forehead too far forward relative to the lower half of his face.
And finally, I didn't leave enough of the piece of stone to be able to round the back of his head, so he had a hole there! I eventually filled it with some pink filler - it seemed fitting as I have a birthmark at the back of my head, under my hair.
I knew that really I should take five millimetres off all over his head. But I had already become attached to him and I couldn't bring myself to do that!
Plumbed remains
I made this sculpture in 2005. I had some old pieces of lead piping from when we had plumbing work done. I made a form out of candle wax, using a wire armature. Then I made a solid plaster mould, extracted the wire and heated the mould so that the wax melted and ran out.
Aside from a bit of bubbling in the lead at the top of the sculpture, presumably from some moisture still retained in the plaster, the technical process was successful. However, the final form is somehow lifeless, it doesn't engage me. The only part I really like is the surplus lead that tumbles across the base.
I think this piece is a failure of a specific category - it was an exercise in hot metal casting with insufficient thought, heart or feeling put into the form being cast.
