This is a sculpture of female powerlifter Stephanie Earl, one of my CrossFit coaches. She also ran powerlifting seminars for my friends and really inspired the women to go further in strength development than they may have initially thought to. A lot of women are still afraid of how they might look if they were too muscular but Steph strives to invalidate this trepidation while embodying the notions of strength and beauty perfectly. While being repeatedly told she is “too muscular”, she is unwavering in her powerlifting pursuits while preserving her femininity, advocating all along for self empowerment and acceptance. Her hard work is paying off – she recently represented Canada at the North American Regional Powerlifting Championships and brought home 3 Golds and 1 Silver!
We brainstormed several poses and ended up with the kettlebell front squat. After the first photo session, I wasn’t happy with the pose because the arms were in front of her creating both logistical and artistic challenges. I asked her to open up her arms so that the kettlebells rolled onto her shoulders. For sure, this is not the Rx front squat but a variation that an athlete may revert to during a long grueling workout. Given that I wanted the kettlebells to represent burdens shouldered by the subject, it worked out symbolically as well. After some discussion with Steph we thought the burdens for this sculpture and perhaps this series could be Societal Expectations and Self Acceptance; I ended up leaving that out of the title as I wanted to leave interpretation of that burden to the viewer.
While this sculpture is the shortest of my collection so far, I designed the pose so that it had the most volume and is the largest scale to date, at approximately 1 : 2.3. At almost 4L in volume and at 17 lbs (half urethane resin, half iron by weight) I was fortunate that this first casting came out successfully. The aggressive iron oxide patina gave the red rust colour I was looking for in this series which carried over in the second cast of Finding Balance.