I’ve taken art classes since I was… grasshopper.

Some were drawing classes. Some were painting classes. Some were ceramic and/or sculpture classes. I don’t remember being taught in ANY of them, how, when, or where to sign a three-dimensional piece. In fact, when I was in design school learning to create things for people to buy and use – “products,” I was taught to think of myself as anonymous hands connected to a mind’s eye; the manufacturer could brand, but I daren’t attach my name.

Now that I practice as a sculptor, mostly of figurative work, I’ve noticed (in retrospect) that at no time, in any class, was mentioned my signing and numbering. In painting classes, yes; in sculpting classes, never. I remember an anecdotal story of Michelangelo, I think, sneaking into a Papal chapel to sign a sculpture to assert its provenance.

I wonder:
What ARE the customs, the expectations, the “correct” procedures and content for today’s sculptors. Who teaches these? When? Where?

I am one of the featured artists in the 2010 Unclad Exhibition in Stanwood WA.

I’m so excited that I’ve been over-investing myself in mold compounds for days!
The website has all the works of the 108 artists represented this year from all over the USA, but my entry is on this page: http://www.uncladart.com/nggallery/page-7/page-4/

The figure, Mwindo, respresents my first in a series of characters from the Clyde Ford book, Hero With An African Face, whose father, Shemwindo has decreed that no child of his many wives is to be a son. Mwindo is therefore an abomination and a miracle.

The show opens March 13 and runs till March 28, 2010

Here’s the map:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=8700+271st+St+NW+Stanwood+WA+98292&ie=UTF8&om=1&hq=&hnear=8700+271st+St+NW,+Stanwood,+Snohomish,+Washington+98292&ll=48.244568,-122.351389&spn=0.063447,0.118446&z=13