This is one of those cases where a misspoken word can lead you to a more interesting result.
When asked what I would make for the 2008 Festival of world cultures project in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland I had said I would make a Geisha ( in my mind I thought I was referring to Ganesha, that Indian God with the head of an elephant) For me I believed it would be a nice sculpture to make and tie in well to the cultural diversity of the project. When the organisers said that was a great idea and that some of them would be coming to perform a tea making ritual at the festival I was wondering what they were talking about.
Ganesha wasn't physically real as far as I knew and for him to come to earth just to make a cup of tea for some punters didn't seem to be in a deities remit.
Finally the confusion was laid to rest and indeed I was gong to make a Geisha, the Japanese entertainer from Tokyo.
What lovely ladies
These ladies are quite enigmatic, for me also. So, I immediately bought a book trying to understand something of the subject. As I said they are an entertainers and they date back many centuries in the area of Kyoto. The name actually translates as Gei meaning 'art' and sha meaning ' a person who is employed in'. In the west there has long been the confusion that they were some sort of prostitute but nothing could be further from the truth. They are performing artists and entertainers that keep their kimonos wrapped up tight. So in many ways I am also a Geisha, less of course the poise and dress sense.
As far as a sculpture goes I wasn't too happy. The sand I got delivered was very rough and ugly, coupled with the very warm weather it dried out to become as hard as rock and nearly a hammer and chisel was needed to carve. You can see this from it's rough surface.
She worked out a bit chunkier than I would have liked and with the grayness of the sand it had little in common with the delicate colourful subject matter.
To give it a bit of colour I took some sand from the beach and plastered it on to her face like the iconic white makeup and inlayed it in some designs on the clothing. I thought that this helped a bit but since I was carving from memory and with no model on hand to work from I really wasn't happy with the overall result.
Hearing that I was making a sculpture based on them I had a surprise visit from the lovely Geishas
themselves. For these ladies it was there first time outside Kyoto and to have me on their scheduled was really an honor for me.
Showing up with their entourage they seemed very happy with the result. They were very happy to pose for me and my Photographer nephew Nathaniel who got some great shots of the proceedings.
The older of the two is a Geisha while the younger is called a Maiko. This is a Geisha in training.
Seeing them side by side with my sculpture showed it's inadequacies but maybe I am too hard on myself. They seemed to really like it and made sure their entourage had some nice photos to take home. They also gave me their name cards which were presented with wonderful ceremony.
It was not until 2016 when I first got a chance to visit japan myself and I must say it is as wonderful a place as I imagined. I fell in love with the culture, the food and it's people, although their tentacle porn is taking some time to grow on me.
I am glad I ended up making this sculpture instead of the elephant God but if he did show up I think the sand would have produced a more suitable sculpture.
Ps
Thanks for reading. I use PeakD to document my work as an ephemeral Sculptor of sand, snow and ice, amongst other things. This will hopefully give it a new life on the Hive Blockchain. Below you will find some of my recent posts.
Olympic rings - sand sculpture
Wilhelm Busch - sand sculpture
The Devil's Mill - sand sculpture
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