Body-building not of the muscle kind

"Triptych" by Jen Harmon Allen, an installation created as a commission for the Not Just Another Pretty Face program at
Salt Lake Art Center, 2011. 

For years I have been building with body parts. Plastic and plaster casts of legs in particular make great building materials in my world. Pictured is an installation I put up at the Salt Lake Art Center from June to August this summer. It was a commissioned piece, in which the patron wanted leg "portraits" of his three ever-active children (yep I think I can do that).


Treating the flesh-and-blood body as object is complicated, but making body parts into objects is rather healing. Think milagros. Think about the transcendental nature of repetitive body movements such as walking. When we repeat something over and over, our thoughts have room to grow. 


Years ago, while making plaster casts of a female figure of mine, I ended up with some broken appendages left over: legs, arms, and heads. I found I was more interested in these fragments than the whole unbroken sculpture. I began casting multiples of these legs and appendages as a meditation on bringing life to broken things. 


I am not by nature a patient person. The hypnotic nature of filling and refilling my molds has turned into both a personal and rhetorical pilgrimage towards patience and progress. One of our greatest sins is in taking the body for granted. Becoming mindful of our life-filled bodies is a process I embark on every time I work on these legs.

Days and months later I find myself with an army of legs with which I can fill a room. I am exultant until the exhibition is over. And I start all over again…

"Triptych" (detail) by Jen Harmon Allen, an installation created as a commission for the Not Just Another Pretty Face program at Salt Lake Art Center, 2011.

"Triptych" by Jen Harmon Allen, an installation created as a commission for the Not Just Another Pretty Face program at
Salt Lake Art Center, 2011. 

A look at my gear as Ascension sculpture returns from foundry

I've thrown away my old work shirt. This beauty got me through some long winters in Wallsburg. I of course used it while working in the cold garage there finishing some of my bronze sculptures. It's been burned and caught in the grinder a few times. Here it is before it goes in the dust bin. Also a picture of its original owner before he shrunk it and passed it on to me. This is of course my husband Sam.

Sam and I in Wallsburg, 2001

The cause for this gear purge is the arrival of "Ascension" aka "Moon Lady" from the foundry. I'll be working out in the cold garage, so I need to gear up! This is what stainless steel looks in the rough. Kind of dingy, eh? You can see some spots on the abdomen and neck where the shininess is showing a little. But it's going to take a lot more of that kind of grinding to get it to shine! 

"Ascension," rough cast stainless steel, 2011

"Ascension," rough cast stainless steel, note the back panel which was cut out and cast separately sitting in the rear.

My client chose the name "Ascension," which is more noble than my nickname of Moon Lady. He wanted to have the title reveal that this figure is not just about the dream state and sleeping. She is a figure rising.

This project is giving me the chance to learn to weld stainless. Here's my trusty Miller TIG welder which allows me to do so. It also doubles as a shelf for some of my Armor Dresses. I am SO GRATEFUL for tools (and warm shirts) that give me the power to do what I want to do. Tools of any kind are liberating aren't they?