DANA TUSKEWICZ, PART 2

This week has been hell for me. Right now I’m trying to get a plaster mold ready so that I can slip cast some heads I’ve made. I have a crit (that is, critique) in sculpture in one week and I feel as though I am nowhere near ready. I made the mold on Friday and today is Monday and it is still not dry enough to slip cast into. I’ve tried pouring the slip into it but when I take the mold apart the piece keeps ripping. Our professor Nobu told me to speed up the drying time I need to circulate air around the mold. So last night I had two fans blowing on it all night, but it still hasn’t helped. All day today, I’ve been asking for advice in the studio. Shana, one of the grad students told me to try putting it in the microwave, but that just seems disastrous. Then I’ve been told to leave it out by the furnace in glass, then someone else said just leave it in a kiln that isn’t lit, and then someone said just abandon the mold and use actual baby doll heads. I’ll see what happens. Right now my roommate put the mold in the oven on low, on convection setting. I figure if it’s not dry enough by tomorrow then I’ll go to plan B. Then plan C. Then plan D and so on and so forth. Worst case scenario, I’ll go to the 99 cent store and buy a bunch of baby heads and spray paint them. It will be embarrassing to turn in such crap at the crit, but luckily our sculpture teacher, Jim, lets us resubmit pieces throughout the semester. So, at some point in life this piece I’m making is going to have the slip cast porcelain heads I so desire.

Dana