Is That Really The Best You Can Do?

I was thinking that this was a big guy with a tiny head, but when my sons looked at it, they told me that the head was perfectly sized.  

The bottom photo is show the sort of  high tech armature I use to hold these floppy clay things up until they dry.

Fear Of Dodgeball

There is dodgeball stress even at my kids pacifistic Quaker School.  

But maybe it should be more about catching, rather than dodging.

Because It Has Been That Kind Of A Day

How Angry Am I?

 

 I had other plans for this one, building it as a scaffold for something else.  But it seemed to be done enough without the additions.

I was listening to an NPR interview with the author Claire Messud while I was making it.  The opening line of her new book is "How angry am I?" and is probably being asked rhetorically, because the narrator, a thwarted artist is really angry.

In the case of the small people who live in my house, it is a question that often needs an answer.  Trivial frustrations can lead to apocalyptic fury, but one never knows just how furious any given fury will become.  And by one, I mean the furious person, not just the bystander.
Although fury is infectious, so perhaps there is no bystander.

What Makes You So Special?

"Mom, there's poop on the couch!"
"How did poop get on the couch?"
"I don't know!  I just found it there....Well....maybe it came from my finger."

The wise questioner will perhaps not follow up with a question about how it got on the finger.
 I now almost look back with fondness on the time when all of the focus was scatological...
Almost.

Does Someone Need A Hug?

My older son spent the first few weeks of his infant brother's life constantly declaring, "I NEED to hug the baby!"

...."Hug" being perhaps synonymous with "crush," "dominate" or maybe even "obliterate."

While some genuinely affectionate hugging does happen now, there is usually an aggressive quality to even the most benign gesture.

I'm Going To Tear Your Head Off

 

 

If my sons could remove their own heads and throw them, they would.  

And cutting one's own head off to spite one's body... or one's mother, for that matter, has much appeal also.

This image has certainly appeared in my work before: here, and here.  But with a very different meaning, although I guess desperation and idiocy is relevant in all cases.

Meat Shield

My kids love the term "meat shield."  It is one of those phrases that they latch on to that makes my lunch want to come up. 
But play acting about meat shielding results in some physical closeness that looks almost friendly.

You Have No Idea What I'm Capable Of

Power corrupts, even when it arrives in the form of wearable oversized foam fists strapped together in a cardboard box.  I liked that the box/base looked like a manacle. 

The Usual Amount of Self Loathing Again

This is an image I have worked on before.. for instance, here, where the unclothed headless body is a painted sculpture, and I am standing behind it dressed in black.
It is not a man standing behind the female body here in the clay sketch.  People have been asking me "Who is the old guy?" about almost any self portrait since my time as an undergraduate. 

The Usual Amount of Self Loathing

This is throw-back to Nina's house of lower body parts- i.e., the focus of my work in years past.
The lower half always seemed to me to be an under served part of the human anatomy when it came to traditional sculpture. And I thought it "stood" alone nicely.  There's not much sexual content for me in this sort of thing at the present... but most of my interaction with the topic of sex these days is about trying to keep my 10 year old from Googling "batman naked" so this is not a surprise.

I Am Going To Kick You In The Face With My Foot

"....With My Shoe On!"  Just in case the earlier part of the sentence did not provide enough motivation.  Here they are applying their feet to one another, but often I am the foot target.

Got You Back

Keep your enemy close, particularly if he is a close relative. 
In fact, perhaps it would be best to store him right on top of you.

Relax Your Jaw

I certainly can't. Particularly when I have been asked.

It Only Bothers Me When I Do This

The mind is a powerful thing, and it can do a lot of damage to the body it lives in.  

Or it certainly seems that way at our house....particularly when it comes to matters digestive.

Or maybe that second brain in the gut is the source problem. 

Or maybe it's just dairy and gluten.

No One Kills You But Me

A quote from the Wolverine movie, I am embarrassed to say, but certainly the statement and the good natured urge to fratricide did not originate there.  My sons are probably not capable of sitting through the movie to get to that line anyway, because they would be too busy doing something like this.

Melee

I am failing miserably at the daily sculpture concept.  Yet, I remain unreasonably optimistic still.  Perhaps it is the sleep deprivation talking.

I did not make anything new today as I was painting some of the older stuff.  That's the excuse for today.

No Really, I Do Have A Deathwish

Another unfortunate phrase sometimes heard at our house.  Mostly just for dramatic effect, of course.  No better way to bug the person who went to so much trouble to gestate you than to idiotically threaten your own wellbeing.

It's Going To Be Like That, Is It?

Kind of a bad Harryhausen, isn't it?

There is sometimes some confusion as to which body belongs to who among my sons.  But even if they might be overidentified, they are certainly never in agreement.

I Have Endured Your Existence Long Enough

This started out as being something about boys wrestling and how it is hard to tell whose limbs are whose.  I think it ended up being something much more nasty about sex.