Sculpture Self-Portrait Part 3

Orual's Struggle

 Orual, the elder sister of the beloved Psyche. The following is a description of the encounter she faced on her way to discover what has become of her Psyche, who was sacrificed to the god of the mountains. She expects to find and bury her sister's bones.

And my struggle was this. You may well believe that I had set out sad enough; I came on a sad errand. Now, flung at me like frolic or insolence, there came as if it were a voice – no words – but if you made it into words it would be, “Why should your heart not dance?” It’s the measure of my folly that my heart almost answered, “Why not?” I had to tell myself over like a lesson the infinite reasons it had not to dance. My heart to dance? Mine whose love was taken from me, I, the ugly princess who must never look for other love, the drudge of the King, the jailer of hateful Redival, perhaps to be murdered or turned out as a beggar when my father died – for who knew what Glome would do then? And yet, it was a lesson I could hardly keep in my mind. The sight of the huge world put mad ideas into me, as if I could wander away, wander forever, see strange and beautiful things, one after the other to the world’s end. The freshness and wetness all about me made me feel that I had misjudged the world; it seemed kind, and laughing, as if its heart also danced. Even my ugliness I could not quite believe in. Who can feel ugly when the heart meets delight?

 Amazingly, once Orual arrives at the place where Psyche was chained to a tree and left to the god, there are no remains to be found. She and her traveling companion look over the hills to the god's country, where no man dares to enter. But enter she must to find out what has become of her dear Psyche.

They enter into a luscious valley between the mountains. As Orual stoops to the river to take a drink, who does she see but her own dear Psyche! Alive and well, only... clothed in rags... but otherwise radiant.

The two embrace and rejoice, crying how they had hoped to meet again someday. Orual cuts Psyche off short and demands they must leave at once, before the god can stop them. Psyche, however, replies, "Dear Maia (good mother, nurse), I am a wife now. It's no longer you that I must obey."

Things turn bitter between the two as Psyche tries again and again to tell Orual about her love for the god of the mountains. Orual, however, cannot accept it. She is embittered by the fact that, although she herself has been wasting away, mourning the loss of her dear sister, Psyche apparently has not experienced this same centration. In fact, Psyche has been filled to the brim with an adoration and love for her dear husband, although she is not allowed to look on his face.

This story appears to me tragic and heart wrenching, that these two sisters are unable to enter into the same kind of joy. The one embraces her new found love; the other holds grudgingly onto what she thinks she should possess, leaving no room for joy.

It is a heart wrenching story, beautifully told. I've never felt so much hope for a character as I have felt for Orual. The following song by the Oh Hellos captures the feeling of Orual's Struggle...

 

Sculpture Self-Portrait Part 2

The Mold



So, after the clay model was finished, it was covered in silicon. The silicon came out as a gel onto the statue, and I had to put soap and water on my hands to smooth it against the statue without sticking to my fingers. If it sticks to your fingers, it lifts off the statue and creates air bubbles in the mold, which will mess up the statue. The idea is to clear out the clay from beneath the mold and then pour wax or plaster into the mold. Needless to say, although I was super careful, my mold still came out funky... this will be revealed later on in this post...

After the silicon mold had dried, it was time to make the mother mold, which would support the silicon mold once a substance was added in. This mother mold would be made out of plaster. Plaster is an interesting substance... You mix it together with a ratio of one part plaster to one part water. It's very runny at first as you mix it together, but then it sets up suddenly after you feel it start to thicken. So, we had to build clay walls around our sculpture to support the setting plaster.

 

 





After the 3 walls of plaster were built... it resembled an egg.

Shhh... she's sleeping ;)

Pouring

I decided to pour wax into the mold first. The flower that represented the heart, was painted with melted red wax. I layered wax inside the flower with a spoon, and the wax dried fairly quickly. After the flower had set up, I poured in melted cream-colored wax, which took a while to melt down. I melted regular candles in a crock-pot, having removed the wicks before melting.

I let her set up over the weekend... then on Monday morning it was time for the unveiling :)



The silicon mold was cut down the center to remove the wax bust.

I had hoped for a nice, smooth, wax statue, but instead...

 

Not what I had expected. But I couldn't bring myself to remove all the bizarre, porous blemishes...

 

She reminded me of a character from Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis. The narrator, Orual, is described as being very ugly, but the only description of her was given through dialogue and what the character thinks of herself. I wondered what could possibly make this girl so "hideous" and wondered what she could possibly look like. She is called "curd face," so I wondered if she had some kind of skin blemish. Therefore, when my sculpture came out like this, I thought, "It's Orual!!"

 

The story behind Till We Have Faces is based off the myth of Psyche and Cupid. Psyche is Orual's younger stepsister, and becomes the only thing in life that Orual lives for. Although Orual is mistreated her whole life due to her appearance, she finds joy in nothing other than Psyche herself. Therefore, when Psyche is sent off as a sacrifice to the mysterious god of the mountains, Orual is devastated. Some say the god is a hideous monster that devours the men and women who are sent as sacrifice. Others say the god falls in love with the human sacrifice. Either way, Orual is horrified at the prospect of her sister being taken away by the god. Oddly enough, Psyche is not worried or covered in dread. Ever since she was a child, she looked over those grey mountains and dreamt of marrying the great king who lived there.

 

These two sisters interest me because they both react to the same god in different ways. To keep this post from getting any longer than it already is, I'll write more about the effects these two statues made in the next post and some of the reactions my classmates had to them.