On Art and Creativity - Making a human head in clay

Over four days my grandson has been working in my studio with clay to create a human head. Jeremy is 17 and has just finished his Year 12 at St John’s College, Hastings where he has discovered a passion for art in the last two years. His NCEA portfolio featured the human head in many forms, images of faces and hands with a surreal quality, accurately observed and beautiful.

Making a ceramic sculpture isn’t easy. For reference he has a book of body parts open at the human skull and begins by using a simple wooden stand with a central dowel as the base and a clay slab is wrapped around it creating the neck and lower jaw. He adds coil onto coil to create the head and face (with no features) and then over the days the eye sockets are added, a nose, brows and mouth, by adding clay to the outside and pushing from the inside, .

The clay is wet and heavy and it needs constant vigilance to prevent slumping through gravity so props are essential. And yet, because the weather is warm with gentle breezes and warm hands, drying is another hazard to deal with as the clay hardens and small cracks begin to appear partly as Jeremy is working slowly because of his unfamiliarity with the medium.

There are timely interventions with a sprayer and paddle as he restores the cracks and the misshapenness that comes from gravity. He does not panic when things go a bit awry, he just calls me to ask for help, we then retrieve and restore and he’s back on track again, patiently perfecting the features and proportions before he closes the top of the head, adds the hair and the finishing touches.

The piece is finished now, slowly drying under plastic and it will be fired in my kiln in a week or so to vitrify it into a ceramic sculpture. He is satisfied with the results of his four days of focused effort - he’s created a very realistic and elegant work and we are both feeling proud of what he has achieved with his first attempt in using the clay medium.