Recently, I have a renewed inspiration to sculpt again, something that I have been doing off and on since I was in high school. I never had any formal training in sculpting and believe it is just a DNA thing passed down from my Father and Grandfather.
I finished a piece that just came back from the foundry. I would like to share it with you. I call it the Hand of God. The idea of it comes from a sculptor I have long admired, Auguste Rodin, the undisputed Father of Modern Sculpture. He sculpted over a 100 years ago in Paris, France. This piece is not a copy of his work by the same name. Frankly, without any intended malice or envy, I think my Hand of God is better! (So how come I am not rich, famous, or undisputed anything?) But certain aspects are taken from Rodin. The size is larger than life, which is what Rodin started doing after he was accused of using his hand and making a plaster cast of it. I did use his idea and the name, The Hand of God, for my sculpting, and I did use my hand but as a model, not a plaster cast, and it is, as Auguste recommends, larger than life-size. Rodin’s sculpting had what looks like the hand is holding an embracing couple, while mine holds the globe of the world, a bit of reflective difference in Rodin and my Weltanschauung (world view.) I recently learned from Legalzoom that one could copyright works of art, so I did just that. If you copy it, I hope to collect a small fortune from you for copyright infringement. I seem to be on a sculpting kick and have several other projects in the works, all based on the hand motif. Hands are one of the real challenges that many artists often avoid because of the complexities and technical difficulties of making it look like a human hand. I hope to have a small exhibit at the Santa Paula Museum of Art in the near future, and you can judge for yourself.
Auguste Rodin The Hand of God
Rodin Museum, Paris, France
Gösta Iwasiuk Hand of God, Santa Paula, California