27. Jesus

I got right back into the ceramica and clay work too.

Since I was on a pilgrimage to some Christian Holy Places and had been using the old Greek Jesus Prayer mantra as  I rode my bike, (Kyrie Jesu Christe eleson mas) I thought I would make some little crucifixes out of clay.


This turned into a very interesting project for me and I made a lot of them--all about eight inches tall and four inches across at the widest spot. I rolled out the cross pieces and notched them and put them together like pieces of wood and then I made little Jesus figures--they were fun to do with Hebrew noses and kind of skinny but athletic builds.


I made tiny clay nails and used them to stick the figure on the soft clay cross and at first this seemed a good solution to an artistic problem--but then it seemed not so nice.


True this was just clay and I was just an artist--but it still didn't seem exactly right to me to be "crucifying " this little clay Jesus.


Something else.


At the time Pope John Paul the Second was the man in the Catholic Church and he carried a symbolic cross that was sort of droopy  and sad looking. Well, that's OK for HIM, but I didn't feel so weepy about the whole thing, so I started by straightening the cross bar of the cross--no droop--and then I even started turning it UP like a smile.  Well, why not?

But after making twenty or thirty of these things, I started to leave the cross out of the "crucifix" entirely and started to make the Jesus figure raise his arms into a dancing man. I turned the famous crown of thorns into a crown of flowers and his famous loin-cloth into a flowery dancing costume--more like a Krishna than a Jesus, maybe..

Oh, it was good fun and absolutely unique and suited my happy feelings exactly.


When these figures were glazed with color (some totally black or deep blue) and fired they were as good as I can do. 

I was pleased and Elisabetta said I could have a one-man show in her gallery whenever I wanted to. Hooray!

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