waiting for glue to dry...

I'm here at SSW for just two weeks.  I was hoping to have a finished sculpture made in this time -   I am now hoping for just a finished mould.

So far I have learned a lot and made a couple of mistakes in the process. Don't mix jesmonite all at once and don't mix all the silicone rubber at once either - if you are working vertically it has to go one in several thin layers! It is ok.  I am here to learn (although a beautiful, finished sculpture would be a great thing too).

I am making a cast of a child's dress. My commission/challenge/grant (thanks Stirling and Falkirk artist award!) is to make a sculpture about Stirling, my hometown. The dress is from a fancy dress shop where I worked and practically lived for three years. This shop is now closed (the end of yet another unique business in the town). The used, handmade costumes were deemed valueless as assets: yet I had heard the stories of parties people told when giving the costumes back.  For me they represent a piece of the modern history of Stirling, something that strangers shared and something that the town now lacks.

Stirling is proud of its ancient history and ghosts.  I am hoping to turn the dress into a kind of ghost.  It will be cast in resin and be translucent, appearing in different parts of the town.

 As Stirling is the town where I was a small child,  I suppose it is also a kind of self portrait about my past too.

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