Unfired Clay Sculptures; Works in progress

I like the idea of painting with clay; I remembered a favorite painter from art school while I was working today.

Philip Guston (June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980) was a notable painter and printmaker in the New York School, which included many of the Abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning. In the late 1960s Guston helped to lead a transition from Abstract expressionism to Neo-expressionism in painting, abandoning the so-called "pure abstraction" of abstract expressionism in favor of more cartoonish renderings of various personal symbols and objects.

"Studio Ghosts: When you're in the studio painting, there are a lot of people in there with you - your teachers, friends, painters from history, critics... and one by one if you're really painting, they walk out. And if you're really painting YOU walk out." -Philip Guston 

I've been working on a series of realistic sculpture-relief portraits. Today was the first day that, as Philip Guston so eloquently said,  "I walked out." I am getting ready to show some of the new works to a gallery in Portland.

Planning on firing the new sculptures with a blue glaze.