I enjoyed making Willamena, my Powertex witch. Before I became acquainted with Powertex fabric hardener, I never took much notice of fabric. Whenever I was forced to do sewing of any type at school I would lose patience completely, and any material I was given ended up shoved way down to the bottom of my bag, never to be seen again until it was unearthed at the end of term.
However, Powertex has given me a new appreciation of fabric. I can often be found in charity shops, oohing and aahing over different textures and patterns.
And so it was with Willamena the Witch. My self given brief was to create a Halloween sculpture that was not too scary – having thoroughly surprised myself with how surreal and spooky my Powertex Halloween Skull Wall Plaque turned out to be.
Initially she was going to be draped in a shapeless black dress, but as I fiddled about with my sculpting, I just wasn’t happy with this. I realised, Willamena had to be a slightly minky little witch, and so her dress became more fitted and flattering, and a touch of lace found its way into the design.
I always knew I wanted the hat to be shabby, with a bend in it, so this part was easy. Initially her head was kind of scarecrow like, and this was what I thought I had intended. However, when I thought I had finished, I realised I hadnt finished at all. The scarecrow look just wasnt working for me, so I made a clay like substance, by mixing together Powertex Hardener and Powertex Stone Art. Once I had the clay I moulded a witch like face out of it, which I was much happier with. Poor Willamena is no beauty, but she was never meant to be. I really like her face now, which I think is rather poignant and sad.
When I posted a photo on my face book page www.facebook.com/artmuralsbydonnamcghie, I felt compelled to let people know that she was a good witch, not an evil one. When I got a comment from a lady saying how much she loved her, I was intriqued by how relieved I felt. Not because it is nice to get a compliment about my art work – although that is always a great feeling. But what I felt more, was relief that she liked Willamena. I am not completely out of my mind, I know that Willamena is just a sculpture, but it occurred to me that, just as when writing characters for a story (I am a very amateur writer), these sculptures do not come into being fully formed, a back story has started to form in my mind before I even make my initial choice of fabric. As in writing, this back story is fluid, and invariably changes as the character starts to become rounded, but the bones of it are strong, and even if I want to, I cannot get away from this starting point.
With this in mind, I have decided to go with my barmy, arty farty imagination, and write up these back stories as part of my blog. It may not be a logical, use your blog as a marketing tool, business savvy thing to do. But I have tried being logical and business savvy, and it just isn’t me. So I’m going with my inner instincts, and blogging back stories. They will be short and sweet, but who knows, maybe I will expand some of them into longer pieces, purely for my own joy of writing.
