Jonathan Hateley Sculpture

'365' Day 365

2012-01-01T10:27:00.008Z

365 Day 365

So 365 days later and my here is my last sculpture, the other side of the Sun. It completes my ‘365’ sculpture and in so doing ends for me, a year of daily clay sculpting and writing which I have never experienced in my life before and will probably never do so again. That is not to say I haven’t enjoyed it or that it hasn’t been totally worthwhile from my point of view, but it involved exercising such self discipline and maintaining energy levels in order to fit it in with the rest of my life.

My memory immediately recalls sculpting while surrounded by boxes containing all our belongings as we prepared to move house. Whilst we had our eyes on potential new homes, we had no idea that we would move house this year, so it required a lot of concentration to keep my project going everyday, maintaining my other work and continuing with everyday life. Of course, as is often the case, my wife Sarina took up so much of the slack on so many things, when either I was writing or sculpting at home and contributed so much, as she does, to all aspects of my life. The most difficult days of the project, for me, were when commuting to and from London for film work, instead of the relative calm of working in my studio and having to sculpt and write on my return. Life has a way of just working out though and despite there being times when everything seemed close to unravelling, sculptures got sculpted, blogs got written, other deadlines were met and DIY work was completed.

There were times when walking in the country became a space in time where all the upheavals around us were generally put aside for a while and it is those walks that I will always remember. Never before have I observed my environment and the life around me so closely, always having taken in the big views, but not so much the details. I hope that all that I learnt along the way will in some way stay with me, but while I am aware that I’m not always able to access the vast array of facts that I am sure my brain holds, I will always remember my experience of being with nature this year.

As for the sculpture, well that is a strange one too. Each individual piece, because of its size has involved such close detailed work, to the point where the changes in my eyesight caused me so much concern throughout the year. I have always had perfect eyesight, but this year the project highlighted the changes which come with age and the prospect of wearing glasses for so much of my sculpting work. So all the sculpts involved staring at pieces of clay that fitted between my thumb and index finger, so no scope for standing back from the work. It is a common statement in art schooling to stand back and look at your work and one which invariably helps the process, but in this case the only true appraisal I could give to my work was to just put them aside after the hour or so of sculpting and view them at another time. When I did see them later, quite often those that I had come to dislike during my time away from them, didn’t seem quite as bad. That said, with 365 sculptures, there was bound to be varying levels of success, but quite often, what I considered not so successful received the most ‘likes’ or comments on Facebook.

I should say at this stage that the comments I received on Facebook and elsewhere were frequent and encouraging and played a big part in getting me through the project. To them I am so grateful, especially to the almost daily contributions of certain people who will know who they are! Even the process of attaching the sculpts to my main sculpture involved close observation, having to maintain gaps in between and each row finishing exactly where the first one was placed. This didn’t always work out and involved much trimming and anguish. Gradually though the sculpts got nearer to the top and a good many days went by with me focusing towards that goal with only brief glances at the end of the day to see how it was looking. The discipline, it seemed to me, had become so intense that the aim of finishing the project as a whole became all encompassing.

When finally it was complete, just a short time ago, I had a strange feeling of anti-climax, not because of the sculpture, but because the self discipline could suddenly relax a little. I left the final sculpt in my studio one night with tired eyes relieved it was all now in place and that one of my commitments was complete. I still had to write about a number of sculpts as they appeared online, but I now had at least an hour a day freed up to do other things. The following morning I arrived at my studio with thoughts for other work, keeping to usual routines of turning on the lights and radio. All of a sudden I glanced up at ‘365’ and at that moment it took my breath away. This wasn’t out of some incredible self satisfaction at what I saw. I am the worst critic of my work and I have no idea what pieces of mine will be appreciated by the public or not, but from a personal point of view, at that moment I saw a years work. As if it had previously gone unnoticed, but was now demanding my attention and I could stand back and appreciate it. I liked it a lot because, it appeared as I had imagined though it seemed far more successful ‘in the clay’ than it did in any of my photos. I had done it, and despite my usual concerns that no one else would appreciate it, my most reoccurring thought was that no matter what, I would always have this year, expressed in my sculpture. Moulding and casting will follow and decisions on how to show the sculpture too, but for the time being I am content to go into a new year with the experience of the last no doubt influencing what I do for many years to come.

'365' Finale Video

365 Sculptures Video

'365' Day 364

2011-12-31T10:52:00.003Z

'365' Day 364

I am now at the very top of my sculpture which splits into the final two segments. I wondered for a long time what I should sculpt for the top, but I kept coming back to the same thing and the one thing that everything that I have observed, photographed, collected, picked and sculpted during the year relies upon for life itself. The Sun. My interpretation of the Sun was intended to be slightly ambiguous and that it could be interpreted as one of the flowering blooms, perhaps of the daisy family which seemed to come up a number of times during the Spring and Summer months. With regard to the Sun, I could barely scratch the surface here before beginning to scratch my head, so vast is the subject. I could quote statistics I have read like ‘it has a diameter of about 1,392,000 km, about 109 times that of Earth’, or ‘ The mean distance of the sun from the Earth is approximately 149.6 million kilometres’, but I would rather dwell on the fact that we rely on the Sun for life. The Sun provides energy which help plants to grow, which in turn feed the animals who ultimately fertilise new plants. By the process of photosynthesis the Sun supports almost all life on Earth and drives the climates and weather patterns and keeps temperatures at levels that enable life to thrive. It seemed appropriate therefore, that my version of the Sun be above all that I have created this year.

I think I am right in thinking that today should have been the last day, so I suspect I missed posting online on one occasion, probably down to broadband issues, so on to tomorrow and day 365. Tomorrow I will post 'the other side of the Sun' to complete my 365 sculptures and reveal the final finished clay sculpture. In the meantime, happy New Year!

Jonathan Hateley Sculpture

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