Sculpture – Dottie-may Aston

Moribund of Memory portrays the gradual decay of sentiment.

My sculptural work began with an interest in natural curiosities. I have had a lifelong attentiveness to the remains of fauna. My muses, most commonly found while roaming the Welsh countryside, were the remains of animals. But since living in a coastal town I progressed from making sculptures with skulls and bones, to create an amalgamation of mollusc and human. Made with air-drying clay I consistently work over layers that gradually form the figure. Without being drawn from directly, these sculptures have influenced my degree paintings.

The perception of shells is intriguing to me, in some ways they are no different from skulls, yet they are usually regarded as a happy and almost naïve decoration. I find that depicting shells, as opposed to the more obvious remains, adds an obscured complexity to my work. Underneath the facade of naive pinks a shell could be seen as the equivalent of a human skeleton, yet they are often used as a sea-side home ornament. Most commonly taken home for its ability to evoke memories a shell will retain sentimental value as part of the home environment.

Three of these sculptures were exclusively made with air-drying clay. While the one above was created with the addition of a shell. I started her at the beginning of my degree. Now that my university experience is about to end, she is complete.

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At the start of the lockdown, I struggled a little bit moving out of the studio, not having classes or seeing my tutors. But when it settled down a bit I had a creative run! I was doing so much painting each day that was until, I realized I was behind on my art history assessment. This as usual paralysed my practical work because when I painted I was in fear of not getting my art history done. When doing my art history I was completely blank because I was stressing, it was gastaly! I decided that to keep myself claim, I should do some sculptural work.

© 2020 Sculptures in-progress, Dottie-May Aston.

It may appear that for me sculpting can sometimes be a form of procrastination. These are the sculptures that I have been distracting myself with. They are taking a long time to complete, because they are not part of my degree, making me work on them intermittently. I usually like to slowly build up the clay. Consistently working over dry layers that will gradually form the figure..

© 2020 Sculpture in-progress, Dottie-May Aston.

The picture on the left was taken July 1,2019. When she was in her early stages. The photo to the right is of another sculpture from June 26,2019. I had only just started sculpting this lady, as you can see I was working from a sketch. I think this is the first piece of sculptural work that I had made a physical plan for. Usually, I would just visualise ideas before picking up my clay, pondering on them as I work.

As you can see she has changed a lot from the beginning layer, and the original plan, but this is all part of the process. The only reason I noted this plan down as a drawing was because I wasn’t in the position to sculpt, when the idea struck.

Although she may look like she’s close to completion, I still have a lot more work ahead of me. Next I need to sculpt the ends of her fingers witch I will do individually so that I don’t accidentally destroy them – this cold take days. I also need to sand her and possibly carve some of her away as I think her knees need to be reworked. When the sculpting bit is done I will proceed to prime her with several layers of gesso. Then I will finally paint her, something that I’m both excited and scared to do.

I don’t normally share pictures of my work when it’s in-progress, nor do I share my sculptural work online, so I hope you like this post and share your thoughts.

“You find me at work; excuse the dust on my blouse. I sculpt my marble myself.”
-Camille Claudel