Me, a Sculptor?

When I first met Dutch sculptor Emilie Cummings at an AWC Coffee Morning, I was impressed with her passion to lead a community sculpture project by working with schools and a variety of clubs. Later when I was offered the chance to join some AWC ladies at Emilie's home for a morning of sculpting followed by lunch, I went along despite my lack of artistic ability. Here you see Emilie giving an introduction to her project while standing next to what will be a 10-foot (3-meter) tall meerkat, which is obviously still missing his head.

Emilie had already created the frames of the seven meerkats that will eventually be placed in a traffic circle in Wassenaar.

Our job was to help put additional wax over the frame. The finished wax sculptures will be used to make the molds that will be brought to a foundry that will pour the iron and complete the sculptures.

Celeste and I worked as a team to place the mix of black and purple wax over the bottom third of this meerkat. This shot was taken before...

...and this after. We sat in chairs for toddlers so we didn't have to strain our backs too much. It was surprisingly easy and relaxing work.