Portraits

'How did I learn all of this from a man who doesn't talk much?

Sit in front of him and put a piece of clay in his hands. The artist transforms as does the clay. He admits that people are much easier to talk to when he has a piece of clay in his hands.

When he told me that he much prefers to work from models over photographs, I didn't fully understand the reason behind the remark. I assumed he meant it was easier to get the three dimensional aspects correctly, which of course is true.

What he also gets is the feeling of the subject - the inner self. He doesn't want his model to just sit there and be still (as Dodgson had to when he was photographing). He wants you to be naturally animated. He catches the expressions as you speak. The more you talk, the better feel he gets for who you are and the better the sculpture becomes.

In this process another thing happens. You get to know the sculptor. So as the clay gets more and more form so does the mutual understanding of artist and subject. Both are marvelous things to behold'.

Ravings from the Writing Desk – Joel Birenbaum ex-President Lewis Carroll Soc. North America