The Manchester Enterprise
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Sharing a talent
By Alana West, Special Writer
PUBLISHED: April 5, 2007
Marie Lyos' first experience with creating sculpture was the angel class offered by artist Shelly Schwartz at the Riverfolk Community Art Center last Christmas.
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When she brought home the tiny sculpture, complete with feathery wings, curly brown hair and a halo, she said her sister was amazed.
"My sister said, 'No way. Did you make that?'" she said. "So now, I am making her a doll for Easter."
Lyos teasingly calls her doll Teresa May, which is her sister's first and middle name."This is my hillbilly doll," she said, laughing.
Lyos has just finished molding the face. It's missing its hair, and the eyes are unpainted. Although the doll wears a bright purple dress with a pretty lace yoke, Lyos says her favorite parts of the doll are the knobby knees and bare feet.
"She looks like a little girl who likes to climb trees," Lyos said.
She laughs when she looks at her doll. As she adds the curling, cinnamon colored locks, she points out that the hair is not symmetrical. There is a bald spot in the middle of her head because, eventually, there will be a straw hat there.
Her sister, she says, is a very beautiful woman who takes good care of herself"This will be a character doll," she said. "This is a humbling thing. I've never done sculpture before."
The medium of clay sculpture came naturally to Schwartz, arts center director. She experimented with modeling clay, sculpting all kinds of animals.
"I've been doing it since I was 8," Schwartz said.
Her first animal, she recalls, was a horse. Lacking a kiln, she could not fire her animals. They dried hard, and she played with them. To give them color, and give them more variety than the monotonous brown of the terra cotta clay, she said she put a thin layer of black clay over her sculptures."That way, I could have a black horse," she said.
But Schwartz said she wished she could find a clay that she could fire easily at home, and which would retain its shape. When she took an animal sculpting class one year, she learned about polymer clay.
"I made a Santa Claus, and it was awful," she said.
She didn't try polymer clay again for years, until her daughter, Kari, was almost old enough to work with clay herself.
"I bought one of those Klutz books of polymer clay," she said. "I made them for her. I used it all up."
She started making necklaces, with caning techniques.
Throughout the years, Schwartz has picked up new techniques for sculpture, many by trial and error. As a child, she supported her sculptures with a skeleton of sorts made of nails tied or wired together, and covered with clay. When the clay began to shrink, the nails often showed through.
The clay was much too heavy, and the creature would eventually sink until it was lying down.
From those experiences, she developed an armature of wire to support her structures, and learned how to bake the clay in the oven.
She grew to appreciate the polymer clay because it came in many different saturated colors, requiring no painting. As she took courses, she realized she liked to experiment with the creatures she made. She made large sculptures, including a tiger and a cougar, both with long tails that stuck out, a challenge for clay.
"My teachers told me the clay would sink down because it was too heavy," she said.
But she found that if she laid the sculpture down until just before firing, it would retain its shape better.
Schwartz has taught polymer clay sculpture classes through Manchester Community Education, Manchester Community Schools and Napoleon Community Schools.
"Last year, we did dragons," Schwartz said.
She worked with the students in a four-week course at Manchester Middle School. When she took the sculptures home to bake them, she said she was delighted with the variety of dragons.
"When I brought them back, I took them into the office for them to see. I was so proud of the kids. Every one (of the dragons) turned out awesome," she said. "The teachers were amazed."
This year, Schwartz taught the students to sculpt animals.
As Schwartz talks, Lyos paints the eyes of her doll. Her sister's eyes are hazel, so she looks about for the right color, deciding to mix brown with green for the iris. She agonizes over the eyelids. She wants lashes and eyebrows, but what will they look like? What if she makes a mistake?
Schwartz assures her that her figure is only half-baked, and paint will wash off until it is fully fired.
Schwartz said she is delighted to see how her students achieved individual looks for their dragons and animals, even when given samples to follow or copy.
"They didn't do it my way," she said.
"I have found it a progress of covering my mistakes," remarked Lyos, listening to Schwartz talk. "I've been trying to do it her way, but I couldn't."
As Lyos finishes the hair, she smiles at her doll.
"I'm amazed it comes together, now that the hair is on it," Lyos said. "I love the little bare feet. They're fun. I think this will be the perfect gift for my sister."
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