An exhibition of sculpture

My thesis exhibition is composed of three separate parts which are meant to form a thematic whole. The three parts — brass figure studies, ceramic still lifes, and plaster squeezed knees -- are intended to form a visual metaphor conveying certain erotic feelings, no matter how obscurely presented. I will not go into a discussion of the erotic motive, which is secondary to my sculptural concerns of creating a sense of life and of exploring a vision of light. The terra-cotta originals of the brass figure studies were the last six of a series made in summer classes in 1968. In the spring of that year, I had been working on figure studies made in three and five hours. In the summer my teacher, Peter Agostini, suggested that I work instead in one and two hours; and this I did for a month, working with a schematization of the figure and making two a day, five days a week. This, I believe, resulted in the new freedom with which I handled the figures, so that each new one in the series seems to come more and more alive. The last one, almost a caricature, was left just so when the model collapsed in the middle of the session. The seated figures are hunched over and almost squeezed into themselves. The feet are ridiculously large, and the last figure is especially comic. But the bits of clay that build up the figures are, I feel, applied elegantly