The Leopard--my senior year, final quarter, final project

The Leopard was a piece I did mostly to challenge myself. My other sculptures were fairly stable, on nice solid bases, or just sturdy enough to be free-standing (like the Tiger). I had seen a bronze frog in a gallery in Monterey that appeared to be relaxing on a table-top, with those LONG legs draped over the edge. I wondered if I could do something similar in clay, wasn't sure it would work, but decided I would try it anyhow. It was fairly complicated project. I coil-build everything, so I coiled the body on a table top, and then started coiling the legs onto that--from the body to the toes.

It was extremely precarious, and I worried that the legs would break off. They did. The front-most paw was broken twice (once by me) and it dropped onto the cement floor, and all the toes broke off. AAAUUH! I managed to fix it both times with a lot of wet clay (used as glue), and a few more coats of glaze. It was loaded into the kiln without incident (*whew*) but shortly before the kiln bed was pushed into the kiln someone bumped the extended front leg, which cracked. I grabbed it before it fell onto the floor. It was fired separately, and epoxied back on when I was done.

The picture on the left shows the glazed, unfired leopard on the kiln shelf just before its front leg was broken.

TITLE: "Leopard"
DATE: © 2001
SIZE: 9 inches wide, 23.5 inches long, 18 inches tall (hangs over an edge)
MEDIUM: glazed ceramic
PRICE: sold, collection of J&L.Plumer

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