casting.angel

A few of you have inquired about an image in the "Around the house with...me" post.  Your questions were not about the image itself, but on a particular object that appears in two of the images.
"Is that a cast of your head?", you asked.
"Why yes, yes it is!", I replied.

Allow me to explain why I have a cast of my head...
A few years ago a fellow architect friend of mine asked if I would be his model for a project he was planning. This process, he explained, would involve my sitting for him, a few times, very still for a few hours at a  time while he wrapped me in what essentially is a plaster cast (like when you break your arm). The only difference is, this would be happening on entire quadrants of my body during one given sitting.
 It sounded thrilling, and like a once in a lifetime opportunity. So I said, yes!
We started with the legs and worked up.
It all took forever, subjected me to very bad movies and I'm convinced was a life changing experience. Sitting for a couple of hours with your legs folded under you can only have one result...pain and the inability to stand and walk for a while afterward...Well, maybe that and the life changing part.
The hardest part was the head. Breathing through a straw while trying very hard to not think about the fact that my entire head was sealed inside a plaster cast was not an easy task. Enter yoga breathing exercises and the day was saved.

This project took over a year to complete, and the results exceeded my expectation, as well as the artist's (my now very, very close friend).

Here she is...complete. (above in the workshop and below in the place she still sits today)
It is humbling to see myself reproduced as an angel sitting with praying hands in a beautiful, natural landscape. Truly life changing.