I’m confident the answer to the initial question is “yes”, but in my little corner of the world I’ve never met a sculptor - no students, no teachers, no amateurs or professionals - and I don’t recall hearing about significant sculptures being erected anywhere in the last few decades.

Sculpting fascinates me, but I’m totally ignorant of how it works. If you’re a sculptor -

  • when/how did you start? Do you start with clay and pottery?
  • How do you “practice”? Play-doh? Gotta imagine it’s different based on your preferred medium?
  • do artists still use marble? Seems like it’d be insanely expensive & one mistake screws the whole thing up
  • eRac@lemmings.world
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    4 months ago

    People still sculpt. Go look up Bobby Fingers on YouTube to get an idea of what sculpting looks like.

    There are a variety of clays. From what I hear, most sculptors use some form of air-dry, not firing clay like pottery would use.

    Nobody ever sculpted in marble. You would sculpt in clay, make a plaster mold, fine-tune the design, then meticulously transfer it to marble.

    • Pirasp@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I mostly agree, but saying nobody ever sculpted in marble is a bit like saying nobody ever painted with oil paint because most of the most well known oil paintings were done according to sketches made with charcoal or pencil.

      The finished sculpture is made of marble, and thus it was sculpted in marble. Not at first perhaps, but eventually