As “Craft Grandpa,” I have spent much time with the grand girls in various activities including working with Sculpey, a brand of polymer clay. It is very malleable and can be made into any form approximating what is circulating in the imagination.

The girls have grown older, the oldest in junior high school. We see her less now that she does not come to our home for after school care. She is busy with her new friends and although she is still very attached to us, her peer relationships have understandably put us on the back burner. In a year she will be a teenager which will be a challenge for her and all the important adults in her life in adapting to emerging independence leading to young adulthood.

The younger one also seems to have moved beyond the expression of her creativity in clay to a strong affinity and passion for fashion and fashion design. She spends much of her time on the computer which, without standing over her shoulder, appears to afford her the opportunity to play with many different wardrobe options. Otherwise, she is learning to sew in her Grandma’s textile art studio, a necessary skill for a budding fashion designer.

My own sculpting with clay has accordingly gone dormant, but not before I discovered that I have potential to produce some compelling pieces of sculpture that have attracted the comments of others. After several months of other distractions, including work-related responsibilities and raising puppies, I am back at the craft table with my Sculpey in our newly appointed family room.

I am re-tooling, allowing myself the pleasure of playing with the clay and developing skill in the representation of detail. I like to make heads, in particular, faces. There is so much detail and variety in people’s faces, as well as expressions to be captured.

I am particularly drawn to older faces. The lines and wrinkles give them character and reflect something about who they are and the life they have lived.

There is a Russian proverb that says, “By the time you are 50, you have the face you deserve.” Character and more to the point, characters, are what I want to create. I am not particularly interested in beauty or handsomeness. I am more interested in sculpting faces that maybe only a mother could love.

Consequently, I also am more attracted to caricature than proportionality. I do not worry if noses are too long or ears to low set. It gives definition and emphasis to the character as do the wrinkles and lines that I love to add.

I have become a close observer of people in order to catalog the details recorded on their faces. I can draw upon this catalog in order to provide realness and humour to the caricatures that emerge in the clay.

It is also a productive use of my relatively obsessive attention to detail. If you find me looking at you intently, it is probably because I am capturing into my imagination some unique feature of your face that clearly deserves you.

© C O P Y R I G H T   2 0 0 8.  Gary Holdgrafer ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.