A black-and-white photo of a person mid-air in a Superman-style body suspension pose, supported by multiple hooks in their back and legs, smiling joyfully toward the camera. They are suspended horizontally in a large indoor space with high ceilings and visible rigging. A group of onlookers—some seated, some standing—watch with expressions of admiration, amusement, and support. The atmosphere is lively and communal, capturing a moment of shared experience and transformation.

Neat!

Meet Victoria, a  life sized stoneware sculpture with some bad ass modifications.

More after the break, including a close up of her “chest piece”.

And then, after baking:

fx45-victoria-just-out-of

Sculpture created by Lisa Elkins, Good Emu Productions, Long Island, NY. Submitted by IAM: Subversive

Comments

78 responses to “Neat!”

  1. Corinna Avatar

    Just for the record. What I know about this piece is that it took her a very long time to complete and I am thinking the carving on the chest was sort of a reflection on some scarification she has wanted for a long time. You should check out her Etsy stuff, it’s awesome. http://www.etsy.com/shop/thegoodemu

    She also started a forum on iam for three dimensional art… http://iam.bmezine.com/iamforum.exe?cmd=chatview&tprm=lbdbczwke16jwq31

  2. Corinna Avatar

    Just for the record. What I know about this piece is that it took her a very long time to complete and I am thinking the carving on the chest was sort of a reflection on some scarification she has wanted for a long time. You should check out her Etsy stuff, it’s awesome. http://www.etsy.com/shop/thegoodemu

    She also started a forum on iam for three dimensional art… http://iam.bmezine.com/iamforum.exe?cmd=chatview&tprm=lbdbczwke16jwq31

  3. Holly Avatar
    Holly

    It’s be great to see a version of this piece with a full ‘body suit’ of tattoo’s, it’s be something really special.

  4. Holly Avatar
    Holly

    It’s be great to see a version of this piece with a full ‘body suit’ of tattoo’s, it’s be something really special.

  5. LastxKiss Avatar
    LastxKiss

    wow thats gorgeous!

  6. LastxKiss Avatar
    LastxKiss

    wow thats gorgeous!

  7. Brittney Avatar
    Brittney

    I agree with Ru… the carving makes it.
    this is one of the most beautiful pieces of art I’ve ever seen.

  8. Brittney Avatar
    Brittney

    I agree with Ru… the carving makes it.
    this is one of the most beautiful pieces of art I’ve ever seen.

  9. Lizface Avatar
    Lizface

    I love the carving, makes it look organic rather than if it was all painted

  10. Lizface Avatar
    Lizface

    I love the carving, makes it look organic rather than if it was all painted

  11. Lisa Avatar

    Oh my gosh! Hi, I;m lisa Elkins and Victoria is my creation.This is awesome, thank you so much Lily! I am in the car now but I will be back later to say more! 😀

  12. Lisa Avatar

    Oh my gosh! Hi, I;m lisa Elkins and Victoria is my creation.This is awesome, thank you so much Lily! I am in the car now but I will be back later to say more! 😀

  13. Eriounios Avatar
    Eriounios

    Haaaaaaaaaaaaa, The room totally looks like the ceramics studio at Suffolk County Community College.

  14. Eriounios Avatar
    Eriounios

    Haaaaaaaaaaaaa, The room totally looks like the ceramics studio at Suffolk County Community College.

  15. Lisa Elkins (aka iam: Subversive) Avatar

    Hi again everyone and thanks for the comments, “good” or “bad!”

    To answer a few questions or tie up open comments:

    My favorite comment is definitely “Damn…. Victoria thick”!!!

    GuiltofEve, I will sign anything you want, especially your boobies. Maybe once I have starting signing tits and asses, I will be more fitted to the signature “pretentious art student” title that I have been given perhaps a bit too early. After I have gotten back into school and earned my Masters degree in Art Therapy and then begun working with the developmentally disabled, disadvantaged and/or mentally ill, perhaps then I will become pretentious. I’ll keep ya posted, ian mckown.

    **Anyone who orders from my Etsy site from here is invited to type in the code “PRETENTIOUS ART STUDENT” when you pay via PayPal to get a 10% rebate!!!!** Thanks for the idea, Ian!

    Anyway, as for critiquing of the piece itself, while I am open to it, this piece was done over a long period of time while I was in ceramics classes working under an incredible ceramicist named Barbara Karyo, who gave me plenty of critiques along the very long road to Victoria’s completion. Certain things I would in retrospect do differently, but overall I am happy with the piece. It was done for me and my personal growth as an artist, and I learned a lot from it after working every single piece of that clay myself, from de-airing the raw clay to carving to lifting the massive thing into the kiln.

    It took about 6 weeks to fully dry from a leather-hard state to a point where I felt comfortable putting it in a kiln. Some people mentioned that they would have liked to see the piece painted. While this would be pretty, I specialize in sgraffitto, and I felt that this piece would be sort of over-simplified by painting the “mods” on. I love texture and dimension and plan to make an extensive line of this sort of sculpture (many smaller so I can make them available for sale!) once my basement studio is up and running, which with any luck will be within the next few weeks! Also, as Corinna correctly touched on, it was actually meant to be a sgraffitto adaptation of some scarification that I would love to have done one day.

    Fiona, thanks for that great compliment that you and your Dad gave me! This piece was hand built from hand-rolled greenware clay coils, and the only models I used were a book and a mirror – though she is a little thicker than I am. Her belly button is my thumb print and all of the details are a direct result of my hands and a few simple hand tools.

    Corinna, thank you so much for plugging my info here – you are the best! Due to my lack of access to a ceramics studio for quite some time now, I have been focusing on Mosaic. Unfortunately the holidays brought on a slow spot in production for me, but be on the lookout for a line of good stuff coming up soon, including one of “Baby Ganesha” and a line of monkeys within the style of this Marble Lion I recently finished:

    http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36721208

    Thanks again everyone, and please feel free to find me on Iam (Subversive), Twitter (TheGoodEmu) or Facebook (Lisa Elkins in Wading River, NY)! I love talking to people! 😀

  16. Lisa Elkins (aka iam: Subversive) Avatar

    Hi again everyone and thanks for the comments, “good” or “bad!”

    To answer a few questions or tie up open comments:

    My favorite comment is definitely “Damn…. Victoria thick”!!!

    GuiltofEve, I will sign anything you want, especially your boobies. Maybe once I have starting signing tits and asses, I will be more fitted to the signature “pretentious art student” title that I have been given perhaps a bit too early. After I have gotten back into school and earned my Masters degree in Art Therapy and then begun working with the developmentally disabled, disadvantaged and/or mentally ill, perhaps then I will become pretentious. I’ll keep ya posted, ian mckown.

    **Anyone who orders from my Etsy site from here is invited to type in the code “PRETENTIOUS ART STUDENT” when you pay via PayPal to get a 10% rebate!!!!** Thanks for the idea, Ian!

    Anyway, as for critiquing of the piece itself, while I am open to it, this piece was done over a long period of time while I was in ceramics classes working under an incredible ceramicist named Barbara Karyo, who gave me plenty of critiques along the very long road to Victoria’s completion. Certain things I would in retrospect do differently, but overall I am happy with the piece. It was done for me and my personal growth as an artist, and I learned a lot from it after working every single piece of that clay myself, from de-airing the raw clay to carving to lifting the massive thing into the kiln.

    It took about 6 weeks to fully dry from a leather-hard state to a point where I felt comfortable putting it in a kiln. Some people mentioned that they would have liked to see the piece painted. While this would be pretty, I specialize in sgraffitto, and I felt that this piece would be sort of over-simplified by painting the “mods” on. I love texture and dimension and plan to make an extensive line of this sort of sculpture (many smaller so I can make them available for sale!) once my basement studio is up and running, which with any luck will be within the next few weeks! Also, as Corinna correctly touched on, it was actually meant to be a sgraffitto adaptation of some scarification that I would love to have done one day.

    Fiona, thanks for that great compliment that you and your Dad gave me! This piece was hand built from hand-rolled greenware clay coils, and the only models I used were a book and a mirror – though she is a little thicker than I am. Her belly button is my thumb print and all of the details are a direct result of my hands and a few simple hand tools.

    Corinna, thank you so much for plugging my info here – you are the best! Due to my lack of access to a ceramics studio for quite some time now, I have been focusing on Mosaic. Unfortunately the holidays brought on a slow spot in production for me, but be on the lookout for a line of good stuff coming up soon, including one of “Baby Ganesha” and a line of monkeys within the style of this Marble Lion I recently finished:

    http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36721208

    Thanks again everyone, and please feel free to find me on Iam (Subversive), Twitter (TheGoodEmu) or Facebook (Lisa Elkins in Wading River, NY)! I love talking to people! 😀

  17. Lisa Elkins (aka iam: Subversive) Avatar

    …and Eriounios, that is exactly where it is!!! 🙂

  18. Lisa Elkins (aka iam: Subversive) Avatar

    …and Eriounios, that is exactly where it is!!! 🙂

  19. alix Avatar

    Put me in the “carved tattoos rock” camp. With an organic based paint, i can see them working, but i think the carving adds really nice dimension to it. Gorgeous.

  20. alix Avatar

    Put me in the “carved tattoos rock” camp. With an organic based paint, i can see them working, but i think the carving adds really nice dimension to it. Gorgeous.

  21. Eriounios Avatar
    Eriounios

    I thought so, I spent a lot of time there making horrible mugs and ‘manifesting my Buddha Nature into the clay.’

    I can’t believe that I would see that studio on Modblog, much less that Wading River would be represented. Kudos to you, at the other end of William Floyd.

  22. Eriounios Avatar
    Eriounios

    I thought so, I spent a lot of time there making horrible mugs and ‘manifesting my Buddha Nature into the clay.’

    I can’t believe that I would see that studio on Modblog, much less that Wading River would be represented. Kudos to you, at the other end of William Floyd.

  23. spookshow_baby_79 Avatar
    spookshow_baby_79

    It’s not uncommon for readers to complain about the prevalance of mods in a photograph: posts of people barely modded often face criticism over relevance. This is not modified at all. The sculpture is as it was intended to be!

    This is beautiful work but it’s not a real person, and so is only teniously relevant. Or is anybody who can draw a picture now considered part of the modded community?

  24. spookshow_baby_79 Avatar
    spookshow_baby_79

    It’s not uncommon for readers to complain about the prevalance of mods in a photograph: posts of people barely modded often face criticism over relevance. This is not modified at all. The sculpture is as it was intended to be!

    This is beautiful work but it’s not a real person, and so is only teniously relevant. Or is anybody who can draw a picture now considered part of the modded community?

  25. emily Avatar
    emily

    how come in that last close up picture of the chest i was expecting to see it all bleeding……?

  26. emily Avatar
    emily

    how come in that last close up picture of the chest i was expecting to see it all bleeding……?

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