Hardly a Leg To Stand On to Dance Above the Clouds
Clay, 45" x 15" x 10"
$1,600

I view life as a constant process of change, a series of journeys; Inner journeys along outer reality, experiences in a constant process of becoming.

The life journey is like my work in clay...you enter into the journey...you try to become the clay. I push the clay to the edge to try new experiences. The result is about what we encounter along the way and how it feels to change...feeling the edges. What better medium than clay to explore the process of change. Clay is the very substance produced by the earth's change processes. I ask the clay what it wants to do. I tell my fingers to follow the clay on its travels. When I turn around and look at the work, I see a mirror of my own inner journey. Clay is a malleable substance that can take any shape the maker desires. However, when I am working with the clay, it feels like the clay is engaging me in a dialogue about where it wants to go. When I get through, I step back and look at the piece...and see sites or people in my life. Entering into the change process, not trying to control it, not letting it control you, but interacting, observing, appreciating, nudging here, and getting pushed back there.

The edges...I like to explore the edges...the area where the change takes place...where the tree meets the sky, where the bodies touch, where the horizontal become the vertical, where the edge of clay meets the space around it. What is it like there on the edge? What are the shape, the taste, and the volume in space? Why is it the way it is...how did it get that way? What are the little crevices and bumps where the edges join together to make the journey?

All these pieces are visual illustrations of personal fairy tales. It is striking that we refer to different "worlds..." The art world, the business world, the civilized world, the natural world, the spiritual realm. We have historically fragmented and compartmentalized our lives. My art is my own attempt to balance and integrate these separate frames of reference...the spirit messengers carrying messages from the other frame. My sculptures are picture postcards from one frame to the other.

Judy Nelson-Moore, Santa Fe, 2002

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