"Grandmother Clock" assemblage sculpture

I wish pictures could do the sculptures justice, particularly this one.  I have close-ups of different details down below.

Grandmother Clock is actually quite scary.  I almost called it "Locked in Grandma's Basement."  My wife says it gives her bad dreams.  It's an alter piece of life, sex  and death, like some pagan shrine. I made it by trial and error by attaching different pieces together.  It really built itself.  I didn't even plan for it to be a grandfather clock in shape when I started.  By that I mean that I didn't build the structure first and then start attaching all the "details" on the facade.  This piece truly flowed by itself the way visionary art should.

The top panel is the Angel of Death, complete with a scythe made from a curved blade of a carpet knife I found in the street.  The ceramic head I used for the Angel of Death was found eroding out of the dirt near the sidewalk in front of a church, believe it or not.  The head is extremely spooky looking, especially the eroded white eyes that make it look like ancient Greek statuary.  The dead white eyes were the first thing I saw when I found the head.  They were staring out of the dark mud right at me, like the face had been buried and arranged for a photo.  When I started digging away at the dirt, the more I uncovered, the more I couldn't believe what I had found.  It was almost too scary to touch.

return to top

 Website and images copyright 2004 Joe Moorman.  Not to be reproduced without express permission.