The making of goddesses is for us a team sport. The team consists of Ric – arbiter of style & taste, Jenny – the anatomy supervisor, Kate – responsible for detail and finish and Rob – who likes setting fire to things. The team is passionate about the making of goddesses. There are, however, criteria, three of which must be met if we are to be moved to action. The location must be inspiring, the clients enthusiastic and the catering to gourmet standard. Other considerations are unimportant. Madeleine and Nigel chose an excellent goddess site on their 2 acre spread in Eltham. High on a hill, overlooking the house and, in the distance, the tennis court.

Brancusi was mentioned, inducing production of chunky, cuddly and sexy maquettes. Sexy prevailed, and creation began.

We make sculptures of clay exactly at the location and orientation where they will permanently reside. After construction they are wood fired from the inside on location. The method has an important attraction. The form develops in response, initially to the chosen maquette, but progressively to the environment and to the dictates of the evolving form. The initial intent was a simple, single, young and innocent naked female. The initial stages of building are relaxed and flexible, but arrival at the belly button stage invites a number of important considerations.

Firstly, this will dictate the ultimate height of the sculpture. Secondly, regardless of intent, evidence begins to emerge of the qualities of the goddess, things like innocence, youth, promise, wisdom, maturity. Thirdly, names begin to emerge. Gilda came to mind, probably due to a recent production of Rigoletto in Melbourne. Naively innocent Gilda, blindly in love, effectively offers herself to be stabbed by the assassin to protect the evil duke. This obviously resonates delightfully with the insertion of the pyrometer probe into our Gilda’s belly button hole.

The shape of the belly has already circumscribed, within reasonable limits, the dimensions and gravity of the breast area. Really difficult question. Nipples. After exhaustive experimenting with alternative size and positioning of nipples, we settled on more of a soft-focus, wet T-shirt, nipple-free sort of look.

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Arms can be tricky. Anatomically correct arms or part arms are technically difficult and distract from the sexy torso. But if arms are to be totally discarded, an area of abstract ambiguity is entered. This is what we did. This also dictates no head. After a bit of a struggle, the collar-bone area was resolved so that the neck would function as an effective flue in the firing.

We now have the firing process more or less in hand. By using tricks like a leaf blower and lots of small sticks, an ultimate temperature of over 1250°C is easily achievable.

The end result is delightful, she reflects the rich light of the setting sun and at night is caught unawares in the light of cars coming up the drive. No one would aspire to perfection, least of all a goddess, and while Rigoletto’s Gilda suffered at the hand of the assassin, our Gilda probably suffered at the hand of over zealous firing – after all, we simply fired as high as 1250°C because we could!

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