In situ Self Sculpting in the Postmodern Era

In situ Self Sculpting in the Postmodern Era By The Pawn

It’s a mess. The widow’s peak is a few degrees off from perfection—a structural blasphemy to the Golden Ratio. The navel is half a coin’s breadth too deep. The phalanges aren’t anatomically accurate—seventeen, eighteen atoms too steep, and the liberated thumping—the arrhythmia—won’t please the museum clientele. This will not do.

Glean your tools and lean on the sculptor’s stool.

The Mirror is the Muse

Where is the mess? Why is it a mess?

The sculptor himself knows his own art best, far more than the most respected art connoisseurs. Only you can swerve the chisel blade with utmost truth when the sculptor is the sculpture—when the mirror is the muse.

Eureka! It’s the mind. It’s the heart. It’s the tall stack of cans.

As the Chisel Switches Sheathes

The centerpiece is ready. Slowly, from the leather scabbard, the chisel is delivered, then sheathed anew into your reluctant grip. As the moon beams collapse over your tainted marble skin and burn the unreachable blueprint on the floor, you begin to trust the impulses of a true artist. With a hammerfist trembling faintly on your temple, the chisel touches the art. Behold, the centerpiece—ready evermore.

Marble Youthanasia

Limestone dust fills the room as the crack on the skull reveals no signs of life–just tangled threads of copper lumped into a sphere of metal. Multicolored circles with smiles and hearts plague the interneurons. You try coaxing the crown with tender human touch, then a kiss, before caressing it to a close.

The rib cage hangs low—macabrely majestic, exposing the pulsating clockwork at the center. The cogs dissonantly grind against each other, creating clanks instead of whatever life should sound like. You twist the golden linchpin until the sculpture is in tune.

25

In situ Self Sculpting in the Postmodern Era by The Pawn

Thump. Thump. Thump. Everything climaxes into a seething swell— the heartstrings have come back to life.

In the liver thrives a vineyard—where godless briars bear fruits of abhorrence. One thorn after another, the cutting edge culls the horror until the scene becomes tamed and the sculptor becomes sober.

As the chisel blade inches slowly towards the final adjustment, the mirror objects for the work is done. When the sculptor redefines his reflection, he buries his old self and revels in his newfound semblance.

The Glass Box

Then there you laid, an alluring mess in a glass box. Your widow’s peak—a mural of the alps touching the bosom of the moon; your navel—a snuggly beachside grotto; and your patternless heartbeat—an anthem to a collarless hound. As the phalanges unsheathe the chisel and draw it back into cold leather, everything became clear: the call was yours to make and yours to heed.

Eureka! Your worth lies beyond the applause from the museum clientele, unbound from this fragile glass frame.

Step off the sculpture’s stool; go ahead and clean your tools.

26

Art by Perlyn Joy L. Suganob