Mother

In this entry, I want to gush a little bit over a specific piece of work by colleague Joshua Henderson. The work is done in Carrara marble, titled "Mother" and I don't think it has that super clean, cleanliness is next to godliness kind of finish that you see in the really "important" and famous marble pieces by the masters, but I also think that's one of the things that makes it so hypnotizing. I think it's one of the things that makes it so that when I'm looking at it, I can't take my eyes off.

So, this entry will be longwinded and nonsensical, because I just think of a lot of things when I look at the sculpture.
"Mother" is covered in a really heavy looking comforter/sheet that is made out of fabric that I'm not familiar with at all. It's thick. It reminds me of when I've somehow managed to get myself tangled in my bedsheets at night and I try to pry free in the morning.
The sheets are leather, suede and velvet, all in one material, there's yards and yards of it, she's stepping on it and if a person had that much fabric around their feet in real life, they would probably stumble on it and fall.
She's incredibly sinuous and slick, she's flowing, feminine, bodacious and rhythmic, but somehow she's also incredibly still and peaceful. Her impassive, resting face shows through a crack in the fabric and makes me wish that I was that placid and unburdened. There is a contrast between the leather/velvet material that covers her and the tilted head with closed eyes. The fabric drapes over her and suggests the curves of her female body, it is a rigid and unforgiving shell that weighs her down, but she seems to shyly and determinedly try to take a step forward, with her hands held together in front of her. The tiny opening in the fabric and her imperturbable facial expression is like a natural process, a creature going through a transformation, transmutation or metamorphosis and she begins to come out the other end: a snake shedding its skin or a caterpillar coming out a butterfly, but this rock does it without a single drop of effort. The shell subsides all on its own, making way for the new figure.

To me, it seems as though the piece is a rock formation, more than stone that was lovingly and thoughtfully sculpted into shape.
Looking at it and remembering that it is a solid piece of rock is kind of difficult and confusing, because she looks so soft and diaphanous.
There is also something about transformation in the piece, with how the texture of her changes from the back to the front, she's rougher in the back and progressively gets smoother as you go to her front.

Joshua is a colleague at the New York Academy of Art, a Sculpture Major taking the anatomy track.
Here you have some fun pictures that I took of her.

Demon

Yesterday, I printed my third limestone lithography. I don't really know if I'm using the correct terms for things, like, I don't know what the name of a copy is. A lithography? Fucked if I know.

Either way, this last one that I printed yesterday, a total of 18 copies came out, one of them is mine, 6 are proofs and the other ones are "official" copies. That's another thing that I don't know what it's called. I know how to sign and number them, though, not completely ignorant.
Either way, I'm learning.
I really like the stone, don't know why. I think maybe, because by the time that I got to it, I became more familiar with the whole process, which is tedious as fucking shit. When this class started, we worked over aluminum plates, which made me want to rip my tits out. Trying to get that done made me realize that when I go to hell, they will have me making aluminum plate lithography.

I was really excited to print this one, I seriously fucking love the drawing. I freehanded it over the stone, where erasing is a pain in the ass, just like everything else. You can't just draw and erase like when you're working on paper.
So, I freehanded the drawing, based on a picture that I took of myself wearing a beanie that has horns/ears. Everybody said they were horns and I got a kick out of that.
Printing him was more troublesome than the previous two lithographs and I think it's because I didn't care for those as much as I care about this one. I love the shit out of this drawing and I wanted it to be perfect, I was getting all picky about the stainy shit on it, smudges, scumming. The proofs on newspaper came out pristine, but when I put in the Stonehenge, shit started to happen.
And I was amused, because, we're talking about a demon, after all, they're not known for being nice or whatever. So when I had like seven or ten copies total printed out and each time I got annoyed when another defective one came out, it was like a crowd of these incredibly sexy eyes were staring at me mockingly. Specially, with that little smile he has. It's like he's thinking "of course this copy you just did sucks, you're not really good at this at all". That little, incredibly good looking bastard.

So this drawing, I don't consider it a self-portrait, everything turned out quite different from my own face, so I don't really recognize myself in it. The nose, lip ring and split chin, maybe, but I find the face to be very masculine, so, as far as I'm concerned, it's an incredibly good looking male demon that is staring out at me. And I like that much much much more.
Unembarrassed, honest, unwavering, piercing and daring stares are good when they come from a pair of eyes like those.
If that really was me, though, it wouldn't be an ambiguous thing, like it was before. The women and self portraits that I used to draw before, were part of how I was brainwashed to think that I was supposed to be as a woman: Tempting, threatening, inviting, mysterious. Like, you look at her and she's irresistible, but she might destroy you. That ambiguity and mystery is what really calls your attention to her. Or something.
If that was me now, you could still think that shit, but what I see in those eyes and if I looked at somebody like that, there would be nothing but the ulterior motive of hurt and pain in them and how much I'm going to enjoy giving hurt and pain. The forehead, more than the eyes, are what face you, it's like a bull charging at you with all its anger.

You can see whatever you want. I like it being a male demon giving me an incredibly seductive and sexy look.

So here is a scan of the print. I printed them at 8 x 12" over Stonehenge paper.