Transcript
I came from the northeast originally, and went to Foundation in Newcastle. I did sculpture then and was introduced by the Scottish Institute of Wax, which is now a predominant medium to work with. I also did photography. I tried not to do painting but I went up to try painting, and their instruction on the wall, which I thought was wonderful, was a scrap of paper, pinned to the wall, in pencil, written, find an object and draw it. I liked this, total freedom. I started to do small drawings., then I changed it up to great big drawings. Then I felt at home there, so I ended up with what they called a fine art department, of painting drawing. So that was my thing at Exeter.
As I did painting, I then went back to Newcastle and taught drawing on foundation.
Then I came back to Exeter and taught a lot. I did colour courses and did painting. but I painted myself into a corner which I didn't realize, and I had to get out of that corner by getting out of painting and went back to sculpture.
For sculpture, I need a lot of stuff, so I had a studio, and I was a single parent. Where I'm getting to is the bottom, the source of my work is drawing and art. So, everything comes around.
When I make a sculpture, I'm really drawing in 3D, what I use is very simple armature, which is like our bones, metal, and chicken wax, clad around that. Then I use scrim and velvety wax in a mix of different waxes. Wax is lovely to work with. It's pleasant, but it's not so easy to use. It doesn't show a history. It doesn't keep a history, so you just melt it down, and then go again.
So, I recycle it with wax. I can't recycle the plaster yet; the plaster is to do with the mold.
So, start with the sculpture. So, my method is, make something hand-sized, you can do drawings, and I do drawings for sculpture, which are like scribbled drawings.
They're drawings which I don't yet know. So that's, for me, the key to my work. I draw from my imagination, which is not like drawing apples and pears and people in trees and streets.
You just hold the pencil or whatever you use, lightly, and then from inside yourself comes out something that you haven't seen before. So that's what I like to do, and I would recommend that to you as a good thing to do, because what you're doing is accessing the imagination you have inside that you don't get to know about and that's what I'm interested in.
Predominantly, I use men, male figures more than females; there's so many wonderful female sculptures, all breasts and waists from a male point of view. And for some reason that I'm not quite sure about, I like using the male image. It's vague, it's subtle. You can put take on it that I haven't seen yet.
So, the little one then is a little, they'll start usually with a small sculpture, what we call a Maquette. This translates to the little one, which is just little and it's quite thick. I never wanted to make it bigger, so it's sizeable. It's not life-size, it's three quarters size, and his chest is bigger. It's meant to be part bird, part man, his chest is big. And he's a powerful image which you can't get from a little one because no way you can get that power from a little figure.
So, this is why it's built big, so you can see what we're trying to accomplish. It's preparing the sweet balance, which takes a bit of engineering. And that's about the family. That's a steel rod right through, and I've got all this stone left and forward, and then there's a plate that way, so the balance is through the steel plate.
Something's got to hold it. I like to balance things.
They asked me at Exeter university, can you put something on the Henry Ruffin.
And I made not too big, but a fortune star, who was supposed to be somewhat about 21, 22, 23, not knowing what the future was, not knowing where she was going. They agreed to buy it. It took a long time to get the money out of them.
I had a sculpture at Exeter cathedral that went on tour, and because these sculptures then are being seen by all sorts of people from around the world who maybe wouldn't go to galleries, and it's the same space, the same atmosphere that you put really big work in it.
Should we go on to Rugged Angel? I got an email from Korea, they're really direct and they send you a two-liner. How much of these, what are these sculptures, can you do some for us? So, they go onto my website but they couldn't see it. Then they select 30. And they very brief emails. Could you be Icarus twice as big? I don't want to, that's a huge job. What if you don't pay for it? Or we'd have Rocket Angel. Yes, so they ordered that. I mean they were marvellous to deal with. I liked it. We will give you 50% of the money for the ones, it was all done like that, it was all like matter of fact.
And we want them delivered in one big box, by air, to the site. So that's what I did. Then he sent these great photos. They loved them, and then he said, we love, because obviously he had a boss and it's for a memorial park.
He said, they built this wall to put the sculpture on the main site. I mean, it's quite big, it's three quarters size again, and so that was how they planned to site it, which was, you know, quite a big agreement. And of course I've never seen it, I've probably never been to South Korea, they have others as well. And occasionally you get me about something just out of the blue.
Imus, started off as a little thing and then I made a big one, and exhibited that in London.
How did I start this sculpture, which became a series? It was about the wings of a bird, a wing of a bird, which I must have found. I had a drawing which was the idea then, is that a family is a unit, like the wing of a bird. They're all connected. So that was the first one of that thing I made, which I put the female figure at the front. And I developed the thing more in the family, so that's what this one's called, family groups. So, it's more abstract than usual. But the idea is the same and the importance of the young.
Obviously, my job is mostly dealing with men. That's the reality of Foundry. It's not all men, but I haven't yet come across a woman boss. There's one woman who is a fantastic metal worker in French. She was actually a furniture designer from Paris and jewellery, and she was wonderful. You don't know what people are like till you work with them. So, I've just tried to say that it's a peculiar business, because you're trying to get men to do what you want, and that means you have to tell them what to do or ask them. And if they get it wrong, it's where the problem lies…. They don't like it.
Figures are much easier than horses. I've just got to the hand, for the cathedral exhibition, I felt I needed to do appropriate work on this. So, I made these butterflies, which seemed like nothing was a simple shape, it was something in bronze sheet, and little legs extended with a semi-foot sit into the wax.
Now, I had intended to cast this hand, it's quite big, but I managed to make it so it look like a bronze, and I thought I'd get funding to cast it, but I didn't. The only problem with that, so it's nice to make something that looks like a bronze, is that it doesn't last, someone could just come up and push it. I expected some little kid to take one butterfly, they were glued in, but no one did. It was about human hand and how we are dependent on the water butterfly.
My workshop, you can see it's got quite an apex ceiling, my next job, is a big job.
It's basically a little barn that I rent and I've been fixing for years. There was no floor, it was full of manure, almost knee-high, no floor, no electricity, no windows, no gaps. Anyway, I put electricity in, stairs in, there's coal, which is very beautiful.
It's a nice place to work because of the den. I can see out, but no one can see me. So, it feels like a secret den. It's over the road to the house, and I like it. And it sounds like a new shift to go for, then you can leave the domestic brain behind and go into your mental space.
This next sculpture is to go in a big lake, they've drained the lake. I haven't seen it yet. And this sculpture is to stand as though it's walking on water, on the lake. The architect said, I'll see to the footing. So, this sculpture has got to be big, otherwise it doesn't look like anything, and then they see it at the out of the window.
So, what I'm going to do is scaffolding. I'm a bit worried about that because I have a tendency to walk back, which could be tricky, you know, you go back to have a look. So basically, it would be about 12 foot. The figure is nine foot, so that's 50% bigger, but he's up on his feet as well, and then there's an armour. So, it's pretty high. And I've asked them to make the armature so it comes off at the shoulder into two bits and you can do that bit once you've got a bird on top, down, you know, not up in the open, and then fit them together. That's the reality, that's the next one in line.
It's a gut feeling of that feels the right size. So, I would work on gut feelings, or a job comes in, really don't want to do it. It's never going to work. It's got to be at least 70% will do it. If you're going down to 60, 65, you'll get it. There'll be troubles coming along. So, I do go on, go feeling about things, and it seems to work.
It's such a physical process making things in 3D to scale with your materials and you have to like all of the process. But you know you have to get to like the process and the materials you use or you're going to be fighting them.
So, you have to choose something you like, I started off with clay. I don't understand using clay. You walk backwards and kick it over your new clay. It's wet, it's heavy, it doesn't suit me, it doesn't grab the feeling of this stuff that is too pliable, it's too easy. I need something that I've got resilience and therefore have to dig deeper to get it to work. If you're in that mental space, you do the best work. You cannot stop. Just stay in the flow. If you are not in the flow, do lower activities that need doing.
Thank you very much.
Response - I found it very interesting to hear how a sculpture artist works and the realities of working with people. This talk made me realise that jobs in the art world can change a lot, it never stays the same. I do really like Janis's sculptures, I think they are unique.
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