Sitting for a Portrait Sculptor: |
SITTING FOR BUST
July
21,22/93
J.V.Hicks
I am in process of being sculpted.
In bronze. A provincial movement to have it done has been afoot, and now it is
being accomplished. A single sitting is hours long. Strangely, the hours fly. A
unique experience in my lifetime. Transported into a still and other world--a
world of silence in which my thoughts gather, disperse, gather again. The
sculptor studies me. His hands work quickly, slapping and squeezing on to his
angled standard lumps of a specially mixed plasticine which does not harden but
can be used over and over. He snatches quick darting glances from sundry
angles. His body responds as though itself gifted with perception. His stand is
on casters so that it can be turned or moved about at will. His chair is on
casters too, and both chair and artisan are continually back, forth, back. He
is estimating at every move, and I know that his estimates will not widely miss
the mark. He takes measures of me with his callipers, and relative measures,
chin to crown, to brow, to mouth, a continuing exploration. Cheek to cheek, to
nose, ears, eyes, relationship of this feature to that feature, statistics of
which I myself had never before been aware. I am finally roughed in. Now he
observes me even more closely as he begins to etch details of my living
likeness with a selection of delicate dental-like tools. From time to time he
asks me to look directly at him, which I do, and an awareness of some mystic
communication overtakes me. I sense, but do not see, that my plastic effigy
takes on a second likeness of my own. Yet the intricacies of the entire process
are by no means done. On the stand, or elsewhere, after sittings have ended, I
shall be coated with layers of rubber, layers of a specially prepared wax,
hidden from sight, encased. Then, as I understand, transported to the foundry,
the wax will be melted out and the peril of the pouring of molten metal will
begin--metal reduced to fiery liquid in the fierce captivity of the crucible.
The founders work in asbestos clothing. It is not unlike, as my sculptor
agrees, the casting of a bell. A long cooling period, confinements smashed off,
and at last the first appearance of my incubated self. Minutest correction, the
removal of extraneous shreds. Sand-blasting. Application of certain acid
recipes to induce hints of colour. Dippings in kind, and there I shall be,
preserved in solid bronze some fraction of an inch thick. Imperishable. A
secular immortality. Who was he, we wonder, the ages well may ask, casting
casual glances, perhaps here and there a secular smile. Time, contain me.
Possess me. I am yours.
Also, read a
description of
an unveiling by the same author. |
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