In the Luberon area of southern France, there are limestone quarries. The stone sculptures depicted here were done in the limestone from one of these quarries. It is a relatively soft stone, that is, softer than marble. However, there can be ancient shells in the stone, which one has to be careful with when one is sculpting or else a fragment can snap off. I like details, and people would say to me that the stone wouldn’t take the details, and yet I enjoyed going ahead and
making details.
One can see such details, for example, in “The Crowded Couch” sculpture.

In contrast, working in clay allows for a delightful malleability and spontaneity. In childhood I created sculptures in clay. One inspiration was my grandmother, Olga Popoff Muller; during her years living in Paris she created beautiful sculptures in marble, stone, and plaster. When I was a small child, I could see many of these in her studio in Long Island, New York.

 

Years later, the structures and forms of the Luberon landscape led me to consider the farmers as “artists” of the land; the terraced hillsides and harmonious forms sculpted into a variegated terrain had an impact on my artwork and teaching, as well as on my involvement in Landscape Heritage. In the Art as Visual Language approach, there are concepts which engage one in a sculptural focus, such as in the “Groundworks” (3-dimensional dialogue on an earth ground), the “Gap” (becoming sensitive to the spaces between objects or between oneself and objects), and in
one’s visualizing of images. (See Teaching, and, e.g., “Basic-Format Carved as an Anatomical
Block…”, in Art as Visual Language; and Conservation.)

Here presented are 4 stone sculptures, and 4 clay sculptures, two prior to firing, and two fired pieces.
Dimensions of the sculptures are given as Height x Width x Depth (H W D), or just H.