The Fine Art of Self-Flagellation ~ BanderasRojas

I really need to find myself a sculpture class or studio. I love to sculpt and haven't done much since high school (a couple of pieces here and there). I gave away everything I ever created. Some of it, I'm sure, was not as good as I remember.

THE SACRIFICES WE MAKE FOR OUR ART?

My-Mother-The-Dowager-Duchess has two nude figures I made and never fired. I coated them in a fiberglass resin, but I don't think it was intended to preserve them through the centuries. They're not awful, but they're nothing to write home about (so I guess it's good I don't need to do so), and they've been glued back together too many times to count; the Dowager Duchess will never throw them away. I tried my hand at Sculpy, which is a modeling compound that bakes in a kitchen oven. I made one figure I absolutely loved. He wasn't really of the proportions recommended for something you'd bake in a home oven. I baked him anyway. He got a little burned around the finger tips and toes but, still, I loved him. And then I gave him to a friend as a birthday gift.

When Adela and I spent an afternoon last week at the Museo de Bellas Artes (Museum of Fine Arts), I found myself again drawn (as I was recently in Maria Luisa Park) to the sculpture — in wood, marble, and plaster. My preference is for drawing and sculpting people and, although the subjects at this particular (exceptional) museum are primarily religious figures and I don't find them spiritually inspiring in that sense, I am still inspired. So, here from the museum collection are some of the saints and virgins we saw last week. Also included is a beautiful, detailed bas relief of the not-at-all-saintly Christopher Columbus with Isabella I and Ferdinand.