Me Neither
I asked seven groups of people who present themselves in my daily life to pose for a clay head portrait with a time limit set to exactly ten minutes.
Each day contained a fragmented group of my life: family, friend, neighbour, student or staff.
The day starts with a self-portrait in clay, that same clay head is transformed over the course of the day with one sitter following another. The process is documented by photographs and video. ( I wore a go-pro throughout the entire process) At the end of the day the last sitter is transformed to a self-portrait again.
With the time constraint in place I only draw the front of the head in clay. If I am really looking then the sides start to draw themselves.
The sitter only sees the unmade back of head until the ten minutes is up.
Every sitter has expectations, and the time limit helps to resist trying to fulfill that.
The sitter might be tired, chatty or quiet. “I might know the sitter well or not very well at all. I get a snapshot of their current day with a pre-sitting chat.”
Using multiple sitters, having them see the process and including them in the final documentation was an important part of the project.
The first sitter doesn’t always meet or know the next sitter but they have an impact on the next sculpture.
The premise is the butterfly effect (ref 1) chaos theory, how a very small change has an impact and the Chinese proverb “the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can be felt on the other side of the world.” (ref 2)
We begin the day, wake up with ourselves and end the day with ourselves.
We are born and it is just you. We die and it is just you.
The clay for the portraits comes from the earth, will not be fired and will be recycled / returned to the earth.