This is one of those cases where a misspoken word can lead you to a more interesting result.
When asked what I would make for the 2008 Festival of world cultures project in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland I had said I would make a Geisha ( in my mind I thought I was referring to Ganesha, that Indian God with the head of an elephant) For me I believed it would be a nice sculpture to make and tie in well to the cultural diversity of the project. When the organisers said that was a great idea and that some of them would be coming to perform a tea making ritual at the festival I was wondering what they were talking about.
Ganesha wasn't physically real as far as I knew and for him to come to earth just to make a cup of tea for some punters didn't seem to be in a deities remit.
Finally the confusion was laid to rest and indeed I was gong to make a Geisha, the Japanese entertainer from Tokyo.
What lovely ladies
These ladies are quite enigmatic, for me also. So, I immediately bought a book trying to understand something of the subject. As I said they are an entertainers and they date back many centuries in the area of Kyoto. The name actually translates as Gei meaning 'art' and sha meaning ' a person who is employed in'. In the west there has long been the confusion that they were some sort of prostitute but nothing could be further from the truth. They are performing artists and entertainers that keep their kimonos wrapped up tight. So in many ways I am also a Geisha, less of course the poise and dress sense.
As far as a sculpture goes I wasn't too happy. The sand I got delivered was very rough and ugly, coupled with the very warm weather it dried out to become as hard as rock and nearly a hammer and chisel was needed to carve. You can see this from it's rough surface.
She worked out a bit chunkier than I would have liked and with the grayness of the sand it had little in common with the delicate colourful subject matter.
To give it a bit of colour I took some sand from the beach and plastered it on to her face like the iconic white makeup and inlayed it in some designs on the clothing. I thought that this helped a bit but since I was carving from memory and with no model on hand to work from I really wasn't happy with the overall result.
Hearing that I was making a sculpture based on them I had a surprise visit from the lovely Geishas
themselves. For these ladies it was there first time outside Kyoto and to have me on their scheduled was really an honor for me.
Showing up with their entourage they seemed very happy with the result. They were very happy to pose for me and my Photographer nephew Nathaniel who got some great shots of the proceedings.
The older of the two is a Geisha while the younger is called a Maiko. This is a Geisha in training.
Seeing them side by side with my sculpture showed it's inadequacies but maybe I am too hard on myself. They seemed to really like it and made sure their entourage had some nice photos to take home. They also gave me their name cards which were presented with wonderful ceremony.
It was not until 2016 when I first got a chance to visit japan myself and I must say it is as wonderful a place as I imagined. I fell in love with the culture, the food and it's people, although their tentacle porn is taking some time to grow on me.
I am glad I ended up making this sculpture instead of the elephant God but if he did show up I think the sand would have produced a more suitable sculpture.
Ps
Thanks for reading. I use PeakD to document my work as an ephemeral Sculptor of sand, snow and ice, amongst other things. This will hopefully give it a new life on the Hive Blockchain. Below you will find some of my recent posts.
Olympic rings - sand sculpture
Wilhelm Busch - sand sculpture
The Devil's Mill - sand sculpture
I hope you'll join me again soon
@ammonite
If you would like to support me
Bitcoin: bc1qp4lfg0ttz66nesgff8fd5unglg9y0l2jy53j36
Ethereum: 0x6abaE039b9BDFB67495A0588cb90F9EAF5f7556c
Eos: ammonitearts
Fortunately I've since learned not to drink coffee while reading any post by anyone just in case I get blindsided by stuff like this which cause me to burst out laughing as that would either result in choking or a ruined keyboard (neither of which is acceptable XD).
Wow that sand is really rough, and I would not really have noticed if i hadn't been following along with you looking at all the different types of sand you work with. I'm learning things! Think the addition of the beach sand was a good idea, and you know I'm going to say the sculpture looks fine and obviously I'm not the only one XD You are most definitely too hard on yourself but that seems to be a common thing with a lot of artists (or at least the ones I know/want to associate with), guess it's how we get better right :)
It's a acquired taste for sure. Thank you so much for reading my posts @ryivhnn I am so happy when I at least get through to one person.
I think as an artist we all need to be self critical. For me there are very few of my sculptures which made me truly happy but for me the biggest kick I get is out of creating and making. If others like what I do then that's a big bonus. This could maybe be seen as me being self indulgent but I don't take any of it too seriously I my main wish for my work is just to enjoy making it.
I am also happy that you are picking up some of the reasons I do what I do and can't do what I want to do with sand. They say the Eskimos have 50 words for snow, well I think I have around the same amount for sand.
Hope you and your are keeping well.
I feel like it might actually be more interesting to watch if just from a "how does that actually work do you even anatomy bro" point of view
You're probably getting through to more people than you think XD just that people aren't commenting because maybe they feel it's too hard or they don't know what to say or they feel like they don't have time. It's not just here, I've noticed a downtrend in comments in the entire time I've been on dA, even the popular artists don't get as many pages of comments as they used to.
O_O THAT'S ME EXACTLY :O
Do the Eskimos really have 50 words for snow? Maybe one day you'll have to do a post with your 50 words for sand, and it will still be a lot more interesting than 50 Shades of Gray XD
Congratulations, your post has been added to Pinmapple! 🎉🥳🍍
Did you know every user has their own profile map?
And so does every post as well!
Want to have your post on the map too?
Hiya, @LivingUKTaiwan here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Top 3 in Daily Travel Digest #806.
Your post has been manually curated by the @pinmapple team. If you like what we're doing, please drop by to check out all the rest of today's great posts and consider supporting other authors like yourself and us so we can keep the project going!
Become part of our travel community:
This is really a great work of Art my friend √√√
!bro
You have just been bro-fisted by the guys in the man cave and now have 1 more BRO. Enjoy!**
For more info, please give us a look in here: https://discord.gg/qd8J2x3