Shouldering The Load
Finding Balance (2019)
21″ x 10.5″ x 16″ Cold cast iron with iron oxide patina
The second sculpture in my Strong Woman series is of Jenn Lymburner who teaches gymnastic movements at my CrossFit gym and owns her own business J2N , training ordinary people to become the best versions of themselves. I was a bit weary at first of sculpting a petite, well-defined woman with a visible 8-pack as I thought I’d be idealizing an impossible standard for women. Sure enough, that physique came from decades of training in competitive gymnastics, power tumbling, cheerleading and CrossFit. But I think the Strong Woman theme is not about a new ideal, but about acceptance of a choice and passion previously less taken.
During our discussion on which pose to select, in the back of my mind, I knew I wanted this handstand pose that she had from her Instagram account. However, it is a difficult one for any model to hold and somewhat risky from a structural perspective at this scale. However, the pose looked so compelling we had to try it out. Jenn was amazing, able to hold it for up to 2 minutes at a time allowing me to take my reference photos. We met a few times as I was working on the sculpture for some live comparisons and she held an inverted pose more than a dozen times, sometimes in a headstand, sometimes in a handstand. I was worried she would pass out but she showed what a truly amazing athlete she is.
In this second casting I applied the aggressive iron oxide patina I developed while working on Shouldering the Burden. I’ve selected iron for this series because it is a material which can be purified to such great strength and gleaming beauty but is subject to aging and weathering. It comes from the the earth and returns to the earth through oxidation and reflects our temporal existence.
Extend to Standing (2019)
