My plan was making a dog’s head with using wax before starting the metal work. I wanted to change the shape before the wax was getting solid. But whenever I tried to grab the wax and put the fingers in it, it was still very warm and because of the temperature it sticked around my finger and changed into solid.
Whenever I used too much power on it then it would be broken. One time, I melted wax in a pot on the induction heater. Because there was also some water trapped inside the hard wax, the now hot liquid wax started to splash out of the pot onto my face due to the boiling water inside the wax. It was a small accident. By raising the temperature, the water inside the wax started to boil and when it reached 100 degrees, it evaporated in small mini explosions.
At that time I reflected on myself that I tried to dominate and control the material in my way. So I changed my mind and decided to use the character of the wax into my work rather than too much restriction or modification. So I prepared a plastic bowl with cold water and poured the liquid wax into the water at a time. The immediate changing of wax without artificial changing by using hands or tools, was very beautiful. It looks like the colour of fallen leaves which are in the middle of green and red.
I gave you an example of solidarity with me and wax (material). It’s very simple and a bit childish. When I decided to make something with some material, at first I should ‘know’ about the material. What it is made of and how I should deal with. I can’t control it with my power or insist. Because those kind of things each material (wax, clay, wire, silicon, aluminum etc.) has their formula and character which is never changed without physical power.
It’s pretty different with humankind, which are very changeable by time and place. But when I tried to control them, I’ll be controlled by them, like the wax which changed into exploding hot lava all of a sudden. If I just accept their character, then I can make a harmony with coexistence.
The reason that conductor put his or her baton in the bosom is not because there is a pocket. But because they want to let the baton listen to their heartbeat and breathe together to do an interaction with it, to conduct a better music. It’s a respect for their thing. It’s more like they treat objects as a human being, even more than them. Why do people forget the preciousness of their dolls which are hugged tightly during sleeping, when they are children.
What I want to tell is all the people have at least some small memory of their dolls, which means the experience of them treating non-human things like human beings. Maybe their solidarity with non-human beings is the most powerful when they’re children. But sadly, when people are growing up, they’re not allowed to have that kind of affection. It’s not about peter pan syndrome or kidult. That’s because people who are drunken by emotional feelings are left behind other people in contemporary capitalism.
But the memory of childhood is affecting positively to their children in the future. By recalling the memory and by feeling sympathy, they can raise and teach their children in a ‘right’ way. Also yesterday was my first day of using wax without much information about it. So I could think and handle it in a pure and careful way like a child. Because it’s totally new to me. When we are more skilled in something, it’s easier to forget the very basic things that we have to do a cooperation and coexistence, not a domination. We just have to embrace non-humans in a very natural way rather than controlling and changing them too much. By remembering how much we loved our puppet when we were children.