Anthologies of Awesome

Because I refuse to let even one half semester of my GI Bill big government money check go to waste, I am in a sculpture class. Besides growing some new appreciation of the incredible musculature of the walrus, it has been a little bit of an eye opening adventure. I had no idea it was that much damn work to put together a fucking walrus. Not just physical work, though my forearms have never felt this level of pain, but mental work. You have to realize a creature you have never really been close to and then for it into something abstract, and then bring it somewhere closer to reality where things have “conceptual value.”

It’s like writing a letter to God. No, it’s harder. I actually know walrus(es) exist.

An abstraction, though, does offer a decent look into the way your brain works. I am somewhat convinced most people have no idea how the consciousness machine cranking out experiential day to day even works. I say somewhat, because I have no idea exactly how it works, but I have a decent set of ideas.

And so, to drive home a point I don’t need to make, telling a bunch of people to make an abstract version of something out of clay is really damn weird. One girl in the glass asked me what that even meant. In reply I held up a ball of gooey plasticine clay with tusks and said, “Like this, only not really a walrus, but capturing what a walrus is.”

Just call me Jesus.

I have all these damn walruses (it is walruses not “walri”) all over my coffee table, probably driving my girlfriend toward some sort of stroke. They have different levels of walrusness vs. blobs of clayness, but they’re all a goddamn walrus. A walrus is hard to fucking make abstract, but sort of easy to make conceptual.

Now:

I once constructed a gargoyle out of the Missouri mud I dug out of my army boots when we had a lull in training. It was actually pretty good, and I wish I had not given it away, but a kid there really wanted it. It nailed a sort of oafish, semi-demonic, sad monster which does not exist. It was damn good.

Now:

That was abstract. It had all kinds of gargoyleness, but was not a gargoyle. Because there are no gargoyles (as far as living things). It could not be conceptual, because what the fuck is a gargoyle? I could have given it six legs and eight penises. It would be just as accurate a representation as the original. An accurate representation of what is not is actually easy.

Now:

Again, I understand how religion works. It is the abstraction of what has never really been, i.e. an order that we can understand in the universe or whatever. You can abstract the shit out of a spirit realm with dieties and shit, but you can’t bring it into the realm of the conceptual. Not to say people don’t try. I have seen some interesting attempts to drag the unreal through that portal into our state. But it’s always an abstraction. Even people who believe mightily in their God can’t really explain a god concept. Or, for that matter, realize a god for you.

Clay is an interesting medium.