What I Learned From a Week Making a Tiny Man
If you love me, you'll never ask me to make you a gift
Dear Penfriends,
A couple weeks ago I almost lost the plot as I worked for 12+ hours a day to bring a tiny man to life. Now I’m out on the other side of this swirling vortex of madness and I feel this project was a microcosm of the creative journey so I’d like to share some reflections…
It all began several months ago when Den and I were discussing plans for his birthday. It was a milestone birthday so I was feeling the pressure to do something impressive. I’ve not been in such a long relationship before so I didn’t know that you’re not meant to play all your ace cards at once; you’re actually meant to play coy and ease them into life as your companion with some fairly mediocre birthday gifts. No, I was naïve in love and determined to dazzle this man and so I came in strong each birthday with the crème de la crème of presents and nobody warned me of the years of stress ahead when I would torture myself with the question: ‘How the hell do I top a professionally hand-painted oil painting of his dog?’
The tragic thing is he’s the type of sensible person who would have been thrilled with a well-made spade or good quality socks, but I didn’t believe this when we got together and I set the bar so high with the dog painting that I condemned myself - forever, perhaps - to weeks of mental deterioration every year around May 4th. This year, I made the mistake of asking what he’d like and he uttered that dreaded phrase: ‘I don’t really need anything; I’d prefer something handmade’.
I think people think they’re being humble and monastic when they say this but really what you’re saying is: I’m not content with the world of gifts that money can buy. I am so unique that none of that will satisfy me. Instead, I want you to pull something, that is currently nothing, out of the raw materials of the earth, and with your hands and your mind and naut else, I want you to turn it into something - something tangible, something wonderful - something that will somehow put a smile on my face and make me feel loved. Essentially, what they’re saying when they ask you to create something is: I want you to play God. And there is nothing humble or simple about that.
But I had asked, and solemnly I accepted my sentence. For reasons that now escape me, I decided to make him a doll replica of himself. Well actually, I had made a doll in high school for art class (heads up on the jump scare in the next picture) and I remember really enjoying the process. I love faces and when you make one you have to smooth it over so many hundreds of times with your thumbs. This is such a loving gesture that I don’t think it’s possible to sculpt a face without loving it.
So, in an optimistic new-year-new-me mood in January I pinned a lot of photos of puppets to my vision board and devised a list for how I would go about making this small man. Acrylic painting classes were a must. Sewing classes too! I would research and DM some professional puppet makers begging for details of the materials they used. Preparatory sketches of Den at various angles would be worked on in the mornings when he was at work. All of this I would do in a quiet, gentle way for a few hours a week from January - May and gradually a little man would appear before me.
That didn’t happen. Instead, I pulled my classic move of ignoring the project and the looming deadline in blissful serenity for months because that is who I am as a person. Suddenly, the birthday was a week away and I was empty-handed. I hadn’t taken any painting or sewing classes. I’d befriended no puppeteers. I hadn’t once attempted to draw Den. All I had was a tub of clay and nerves teeming with panic. When I finally set to working on the thing, the feeling I had in my body was:
“AAAARRRRRGGGGGhhhggggghshhrgghahhjarhjesjh”
As I sat down at my desk, I felt like a child, I felt like a fool, I felt like an idiot. After two hours of careful sculpting, my beloved was starting to resemble the elephant man.
At this point I wanted to weep, scrunch the whole thing up and buy him a pair of expensive loafers instead. But I was in too deep. The birthday was a week away and anything I could buy at this stage would reek of the stench of a lack of effort. There would be no suffering from me evident in a nice pair of shop-bought shoes, and I was beginning to realise that suffering was my truest love language. Four solid hours later, this is what the face looked like, and I allowed myself to go to bed not hopeful, but resigned.
The next day I made the hands and feet. This was a really good day. I think hands are so beautiful. I’ll never understand foot fetishists when there are hands. They are so much more sensual. I started to get that creator’s high when one of the hands looked like the picture below, that wave of artistic arrogance that envelopes you when the creation is going well and you start imagining yourself capable of…everything! I truly enjoyed the hours spent shaping the knobbly bits of the knuckles while picturing how much Michelangelo would have appreciated having me as his apprentice. It was going so well that I remember actually having the thought ‘I can conceivably see how God created the world in 7 days’. In case you hadn’t guessed, I am totally unbearable company when my art projects are going well.
Then, I made his body out of cloth and cushion filler and I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I barely saw Den all week but he knew I was working on something for him and I texted him updates that ranged from ‘Den, I am very gifted’ to ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me, why did you never tell me I’m completely DELUSIONAL?’, and usually most nights I’d give him a warning to prepare his best mask of happiness for Sunday because whatever I handed him, he must feign awe and delight. Admittedly, this whole project took a toll on our relationship as we hardly spoke all week and when we did I would zone out as he talked, trying to study and remember the precise placement of his freckles and scars, and then he’d get annoyed that I hadn’t heard a word he said.
On Saturday I was slowly giving up. The little man didn’t have a jumper, the skin on the limbs was five different colours of flesh and I had agreed to go to a concert that night, back when I believed in my ability to lead a balanced life. I started to despair, and then to fantasise about reasons to break up with Den, who by this point I hated, knowing he would never subject himself to such insanity, knowing he’d go out and buy me a pretty dress for my birthday and that I’d love it so much, and knowing, of course, that this had nothing to do with him. I went to the concert, then left early and with rum and regret coursing through my veins I stayed up late trying to make my disastrous creation look like a birthday present. I went to bed at 2.30am in defeat.
The next morning Den woke before me on his own birthday and made himself a cup of tea. There was no breakfast in bed and I was very far from a vision of loveliness bearing gifts when I croaked ‘happy birthday’ at him and rummaged with one hand under the mattress for the thing. With bloodshot eyes and shaky hands, I handed him the creature and stammered an apology. ‘It doesn’t have hair yet…its sleeve…the painting on the feet… I…lost the will to live…I’m…sorry.’
His face worked through a series of unreadable expressions. ‘Is that…is that supposed to be me?’ A nervous chuckle. I nodded sadly in response. I asked didn’t he think there was a likeness. A closed question, a tactic of manipulation of the desperate. ‘But then… why does he look…Vietnamese?’
That’s about it, folks!
…No, I’m joking. After he accepted that his features do have a slight asian quality and that he does have quite a dark complexion in summertime, he rewarded me with compliments. He admired the hands and the earring, assured me he loved it and listened attentively to the long-winded process of making it. And in the weeks since we’ve had a lot of fun posing the little man around the house. We stayed at a very nice hotel in Cornwall and I had to intervene when he tried to leave the doll in a suggestive pose on the bed for the maid to discover, because surely cleaning up the bedroom detritus of strangers is plenty creepy already.
At the end of all of this, a few lessons have stayed with me. For one thing, I think that feeling of being ‘a child and a fool and an idiot’ is a vital state of humility when making anything. And that ‘ARGH’ feeling should always be there. I think creation needn’t be painful but it is meant to be uncomfortable and I’ve been a coward lately about sitting with that discomfort. I think it is so much easier to find the courage to embrace this discomfort when you picture a beloved face on the other end. I wonder what faces I must attach to my other shapeless dreams. I think that DaVinci quote that ‘art is never finished, only abandoned’ is so true and great art is simply a matter of time. The more time you invest, the more detailed your creation becomes and, obviously, the more skilled you are, the more you can do with less time, and that mastery only comes about with…time.
And mostly… when I look at the doll I have to stop myself from listing the imperfections. There are so many. I should have used polymer clay, not foam clay. The legs are too short, the shoulders too bulky. A finer yarn for the jumper would have fixed the awkward posture. The eyes are kind of bulging and I wish I’d bought fine-pointed tools to sculpt eyelids. Those painting classes wouldn’t have gone amiss. And oh no, he doesn’t even sit up by himself and actually I should have built a wire frame. My kingdom for a spine of wire! In fact, honestly, I should like to rip the whole thing up and start all over again.
If I had done all of these things, I know for sure the doll would have been better, neater, sharper, more perfect. I also know, for sure, I would never have finished it.
And in the end, it’s still worth it.
Thank you all for the lovely messages this week after I ran the book giveaway, and for helping me clear out the office! Now that I have this week’s blog up I’m going to package up the books and start sending them out on Monday. I also want to let you all know that I’m going to drop the newsletter to being a bi-monthly publication as I need to spend a lot more time sitting with the discomfort of my novel next week! I’ll continue sharing notes and will try to respond to some more messages next week. Otherwise, have a lovely weekend and chat to you in a couple weeks!
Lots of Love,
That turned out really cool! The artists struggle is a real one. I nitpick my knitted, crochet, and sewing creations endlessly. But I also don't like going in and fixing them either. I have always kind of felt that once abandoned as DaVinci says,to go in and fix them would be to strip the art of its flaws. To me flaws are what gives it beauty.. just realized that is a lot like us humans too. Also in the realm of gifts you can't top, my first gift to my husband was a woodburning artwork of ducks flying up out of a swap that I did. Yeah....I still haven't topped that 😂.
Maybe next year you should utilize you're writing skills. You could write a poem for him. If that's not something personal, i don't know what is 😉.