Purple Mourning

Last week, I mentioned my love for sculpture. This week I have decided to start with some of my earliest attempts at sculpting.

While attending Bloomsburg University, I took many ceramic courses. We were given an unlimited supply of clay and told to create. None of the art classes had live models, so my understanding of human anatomy was limited.

My favorite sculpture was called Purple Mourning. I coil built it out of stoneware clay (no armature) and then finished it off in acrylic paint. The piece was a little over three feet high, and seemed to weigh about a ton.

Unfortunately, this sculpture had a tragic ending. One weekend, my teacher placed Purple Mourning outside the small sculpture building to make room for other sculptures. This happened to be the same weekend as my schools annual block party. I came back to Bloomsburg on Monday, and found the shattered pieces of Purple Mourning scattered over the ground. I was heart broken. To make matters worse, the sculpture was going to be sold to a fellow student.

However, I did learn a valuable lesson from this experience. It is important to let things go, and move on to the next project.


Purple Mourning, at the Bloomsburg University Annual Student Exhibition