Ursula Vs. Sculpture part II

Head done, attached to styrofoam egg, wired to armature mesh. Body molded out of mesh, soon to be packed with filler. Head weighs more than body, causing whole thing to tip forward and faceplant. Okay. I can handle that. Built a clay base, jammed a steel rod into it (scavenged from the posterior of my footless wooden artist’s model, who has really crappy joints and thus has been completely useless for several years now. He should be happy to give his ability to stand erect for the cause.) jammed rod into back of head, discovered immediately that while the rod was great for keeping the head suspended in air as needed, the weight of the base did not in any way equal the weight of the face.

“You need to weight the base,” said James. “Go to the hardware store and get lead weights.”

I went to the hardware store. They stared at me blankly. Lead weights? What was I, nuts? They don’t carry no stinkin’ lead weights. How about a brick? I could break a brick in half, that oughta be heavy enough. No, they don’t carry bricks. What did I think they were, some kind of magical lead-weight-and-brick store?

I went to the grocery/garden store next door and laid out 49 cents on a brick–art is expensive–and rather more on neccessary groceries, which included a mini-cheese log. Cheese logs and Triscuits are a major vice that James and I share–if you haven’t tried ’em, they cost less than a bag of chips, and are way, way, more fattening. I swear, I’ll start exercising here any day now. I took the brick and cheese log home. The cheese log was met with joy. The brick was met with disbelief–how did I propose to break this brick in half? With what tools? And even then, where was there enough space to adhere the brick?

49 cents poorer, but somewhat wiser, I went out again, this time to a sporting goods store, and bought some metal sinkers. (Hobby shops and fabric stores selling curtain weights were also recommended, but my aimless wandering took me to the sporting goods store first.) An elderly woman in the fishing aisle brandished some kind of LED glowing lure of death at me and said “Have you tried this?! These are amazing!” I was forced to confess that I don’t know anything about fishing but was working on a sculpture. She looked sad. I promised that if I ever took up fishing, I’d try the lure. I don’t know if that helped. Perhaps there aren’t enough young women getting into fishing. I don’t know. I haven’t gone fishing since I caught dogfish in Vancouver with my father when I was six. But they did have weights, which didn’t cost much more than the brick–I guess small metal slugs aren’t exactly expensive to produce–and now, armed with glue gun and weights, I go to the attack.

Once more into the breach!

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