My first attempt working in clay. Marc’s head.

Marc has never been able to sit still for too long. Even at 5-6 months old.

I had been sculpting for about 2 years when he was born in 1960. The work in wood had given me enough confidence to try to do a portrait in clay of my new son. Hah!. What a challenge that was.

Aside from learning a new medium I was trying to portray a moving target. For several weeks I would set him in front of me and throw clay onto the armature. Eventually I would get close and then loose it, mash it up and start over another day. This went on for several attempts and each time I would give up out of frustration. He just wouldn’t stay in one place long enough to let me check the work against him. After several attempts I figured I wasn’t up to the task.

One Saturday I began again without him. I had memorized his features so well by then that I finished the piece in one afternoon … and it was right on.

Then I had to learn the next step so I bought a book on making rubber molds.When the mold was done it became a question of how to cast it.I decided I was going to do the head in what was then called “Sculpt metal”.I don’t know if the product is still available but when dried it was suppose to look like aluminum.

The problem was this . I was told that the material could not be cast into a rubber mold, It would not hold detail, when dry it would crack.. all sorts of bad stuff… but I figured out a way to pack the material into the mold and I waited longer than normal to take the head out to see what I had.

Marc at 6 months . Life size

It was a risk. I could have lost it but here it is 51 years later just as good as the day it came out of the mold.