A Funny Sculpture Story

Reclining Nude
Terra Cotta

When I do a sculpture, I can't just do it in one day.  It takes weeks to finish a piece.
So at the start of a class,  we had a beautiful model with a lovely figure.  I was so excited and enjoyed the whole day that I worked on her.  But at the end of the session, she said she wasn't coming back.  She lived in Dale City and the traffic was just too much for her.  I was very disappointed that she wasn't coming back.  The teacher said she would get another model for the next week.  I asked her if she could get another female model, and she said yes.  She knew the perfect model.

Sara
terra cotta by Jane McElvany Coonce

The next week Sara walked in.  She took off her robe and sat on a stool and took her pose.  Sara was about 5 '2'' and extremely overweight.  She was in marked contrast than the model we had the previous week.  I looked at my friend next to me and whispered, "This is gonna take a lot of clay."

But as I got into this sculpture, I enjoyed the movement of her rolls and the angles of her body.  In the end, this is probably one of my favorite sculptures that I've done.  I've never wanted to sell her.  She sits in my bedroom.

When the boys were little, they used to have a friend over for a play date, and the first thing they would do is to take the kid back to my bedroom and show off Sara.  I would hear some giggling and knew that they were "admiring" my sculpture.  Over the years, she has been used as a hat rack for my husband's collection of baseball caps.  But lately, with this shelter in place due to the corona virus, I've been doing some cleaning and straightening up.  Sara is now free of hats and is sitting there in all her glory showing the world the attributes that God gave her.