The Wasp Man haunts artist

Before the next post returns to the primary focus on the great people in the marvellous community of classified advertising, this image may interest art lovers.

A MAN sacrifices his identity for the sake of one of the most feared and despised insects – the wasp. How’s that for the plot of a horror thriller?
The surreal image of The Wasp Man sprang from collaboration between human and nature as sculptor Jenny Rumney modelled a clay character study for possible casting in bronze.
While the clay was drying in Jenny’s studio before the next production stage, wasps took a liking to the surface and quickly smothered the face with mud nests.
"The wasps started work when the clay dried and it must have been a day’s work for them -- one day I looked at the sculpture and saw the results of their industry," Jenny says.
Jenny first considered the insects had damaged her work but then recognised their contribution to her creative process.

SHE fired and glazed the clay, wasp nests and all, to create her latest work, The Wasp Man, bearing a slight resemblance to the Invisible Man, an Egyptian mummy or the star of a classic horror movie but destined to be a signature piece for the artist from Russell Island in southern Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia.
Jenny has made a mould of The Wasp Man to allow its affordable reproduction in the material of choice, whether metal, resin or other appropriate medium.
She can supply a wax of the sculpture to allow cheap and easy transport of the design to the buyer’s choice of foundry, anywhere in the world.

JENNY is also happy to manage the production process and ship the final casting (in whatever medium) if that is preferred. POA. Inquiries to

fourjays@bigpond.com. More about Jenny’s sculptures on www.geocities.com/jennyrumney/.

FOOTNOTE: Thinking about the ‘write-off ‘ in the introduction to this article, I realised that Jenny, married to me, has her place in the marvellous community just as the many connections you’ll see in any story I have found in the Classies over decades. Browse through more than 100 posts to date -- I hope you enjoy the read as much as I have enjoyed the discovery and writing. More interesting stories are waiting to be told!

Stopping to smell the roses, soak up the art

Images clockwise from immediate right: sculpture in Qld beech, cast aluminium tile honouring the creatures of Moreton Bay; Australian flora motifs carved in Qld beech and cast in aluminium; bronze of the late Bill Branch, commissioned by the southern bay islands RSL sub branch.

SOMETIMES everyone has to take a step back, look at how they expend their energies and ask themselves, "Why am I doing this?"
Today I must be on a bit of a 'downer'. That question opened up some old scars and relatively new wounds.
My expeditions into the real world of the marvellous community of classified advertising have been branded over the years as "trivia".
Yes, you read it right - the good old six-letter putdown, in a media culture driven by self-righteous sensationalism.
I am no stranger to the curled lip, smug shrug and blithe indifference to my monument for the heritage of publishing.
Whether the expression is outright disrespect or stony silence, I can handle it because I've had a good few decades dealing with it.
The people who trust me to tell their stories more than make up for the lack of courtesies that seem inevitably to confront me in my calling.

TODAY, when I looked at my world and stopped to smell the roses I realised that I do devote a lot of effort to this while neglecting beauty around me.
So just to get on an upbeat I thought I'd share with you some of the marvellous artworks by my wife, Jenny.
By the way, she gets a mention in an earlier post. Visitors to the site may already have seen the wasp man.

Jenny's work is also on exhibition at her own current site, with more in the archives of cyberspace - some character studies, cast metal tiles and more 'special person sculptures'.