1 00:00:07,460 --> 00:00:12,280 [Arlene Shechet: Sculpting Time] 2 00:00:13,600 --> 00:00:17,480 I am going to see pieces I haven't seen in twenty years 3 00:00:17,480 --> 00:00:22,820 because a lot of these went to different people in different places. 4 00:00:22,820 --> 00:00:26,000 Sadly, some of them we couldn't locate. 5 00:00:33,760 --> 00:00:38,879 Twenty-five years ago, a very close friend of mine, Carol, 6 00:00:38,879 --> 00:00:41,570 was dying at a very young age-- 7 00:00:41,570 --> 00:00:44,960 at the same time that I was having babies. 8 00:00:45,760 --> 00:00:50,940 One day, when it was very clear that Carol was dying quite soon, 9 00:00:50,949 --> 00:00:56,359 I was tearfully explaining to a Buddhist teacher. 10 00:00:56,359 --> 00:01:01,319 He said, "You know, stop making such a big deal out of it." 11 00:01:01,320 --> 00:01:07,620 And when he said that, I realized he was completely right. 12 00:01:07,630 --> 00:01:09,630 He's like, "Everybody's going to die," 13 00:01:09,630 --> 00:01:12,210 "don't be too dramatic about it." 14 00:01:12,800 --> 00:01:16,330 I had come to the realization, for the first time, 15 00:01:16,330 --> 00:01:18,290 that I was going to die-- 16 00:01:18,290 --> 00:01:20,500 which should have been no surprise 17 00:01:20,500 --> 00:01:23,780 but was a huge surprise, [LAUGHS] 18 00:01:23,780 --> 00:01:25,080 inside of me. 19 00:01:26,150 --> 00:01:31,890 So, to honor Carol, I basically threw out everything in my studio 20 00:01:31,890 --> 00:01:34,210 and I started anew. 21 00:01:35,140 --> 00:01:39,070 Instead of being one of those New Yorkers saying, "I don't have enough time," 22 00:01:39,070 --> 00:01:44,050 I said, "Whatever time I have is exactly the time that I need." 23 00:01:48,800 --> 00:01:53,020 Plaster is so much a timekeeper. 24 00:01:53,020 --> 00:01:56,640 Every single second as it's drying, it changes. 25 00:01:57,420 --> 00:01:59,420 Even though I'd work with plaster many times, 26 00:01:59,420 --> 00:02:02,260 I was just starting to pay attention to what was happening, 27 00:02:02,260 --> 00:02:04,940 and I took the wet soup and I would try to mold it, 28 00:02:04,940 --> 00:02:06,800 and it would start to harden up. 29 00:02:06,800 --> 00:02:09,820 I would keep molding without an armature. 30 00:02:09,820 --> 00:02:13,440 I had been doing some paintings out of paint skins. 31 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:17,940 I started embedding the paint skins onto it. 32 00:02:19,880 --> 00:02:23,860 Whatever time--be it an hour or be it five hours-- 33 00:02:23,860 --> 00:02:28,480 I would make a piece for that amount of time, out of that material, 34 00:02:28,480 --> 00:02:32,020 that suddenly became just the right thing. 35 00:02:34,520 --> 00:02:37,080 For about a year, without letting anybody know-- 36 00:02:37,090 --> 00:02:39,569 including my husband-- [LAUGHS] 37 00:02:39,569 --> 00:02:41,709 I grew this family. 38 00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:46,960 I would put them on the various stools. 39 00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:50,140 I just saw them as living on those places. 40 00:02:50,140 --> 00:02:52,140 And so they just stayed there. 41 00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:57,340 [Arlene Shechet: All at Once] 42 00:02:59,540 --> 00:03:03,260 I didn't have aspirations to make a perfect figure; 43 00:03:03,260 --> 00:03:07,260 I had aspirations to make this, kind of, signifier. 44 00:03:08,260 --> 00:03:11,740 The real meaning of an icon--at least for me-- 45 00:03:11,740 --> 00:03:18,160 was in that it was there to keep me remembering what I wanted to remember. 46 00:03:21,060 --> 00:03:27,020 After a period of time, I made something that reminded me of a Buddha form. 47 00:03:29,340 --> 00:03:32,620 Very long story short, I just decided to go with that 48 00:03:32,630 --> 00:03:38,870 because seeking form was giving what I was doing some direction 49 00:03:38,870 --> 00:03:40,590 without too much direction. 50 00:03:46,040 --> 00:03:50,580 I actually lived with them and enjoyed them as an installation. 51 00:03:52,700 --> 00:03:55,340 It's not going to look as funky as my studio, 52 00:03:55,349 --> 00:03:58,680 but it gets back to what I lived with, 53 00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:03,020 as reminders of life being fragile-- 54 00:04:03,020 --> 00:04:08,960 and to have that be addressed in my studio on a daily basis.