Wax Dolls
Wax Sculpture
In 1997, my daughter Déborah was thirteen years old. For years I had vainly tried to interest her in visual arts. In the 1980s, I had held a teaching position in sculpture at the École des Beaux Arts in Aix-en-Provence. Before that, I had become familiar with numerous techniques—the readers of my comics already know this. I had also been a painter, lithographer, sculptor, engraver, blacksmith, and, in my spare time, a potter.
So I had tried to interest my daughter in pottery, at a workshop in Aix. Total failure.
The same thing happened with drawing, music, travel (Kenya, the Caribbean, American National Parks, etc.), rock climbing, diving, and boating. Failure everywhere. In fact, my daughter had a secret passion that I only discovered by chance in 1997:
wax sculpture.
One can sculpt almost anything: stone, wood, iron. If you type "wax sculpture" into Google, you'll find many pages explaining how to handle this material.
But when my daughter began demonstrating her mastery of this technique at home, she explained that it was exclusively devoted to the making of wax dolls. She took out a large yellow candle from her bag, which she used as a heat source, and began working directly with white candles, using only her hands. Without a camera at hand, I made this very faithful sketch showing her at work and also displaying her creations: apparently two small figures kneeling, one male, one female.
1997: My daughter Déborah, making wax dolls
Her skill was astonishing. While I had never managed to get her to hold a pencil, a brush, or turn a pot, she managed to shape human forms from these cylindrical candles simply by manipulating the softened wax with her hands, a mastery that spoke of long practice.
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"But where on earth did you learn to do this?"
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"My mother (Chrislène Cirera) taught me. She’s practiced this decorative art for a long time."
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"She never said a word to me about it. I imagined that stay-at-home mothers devoted themselves to needlework."
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"Needlework is actually a very broad field of activity, you know."
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"I suppose there are different kinds of needlework."
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"In a way. By the way, I’d really like to go to Gabon next summer, to visit my aunt."
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"Gabon appeals to you that much? Yet the trip I took you on to Kenya didn’t seem to excite you very much."
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"In Gabon, there are the marabouts and their knowledge. That fascinates me."
Our relationship deteriorated quickly after that episode, due to a profound disagreement about the aesthetic qualities of these wax dolls.
I don’t know whether she and her mother continued this kind of activity. At one point, I offered to have her write down in detail the technique and the path her mother had followed to teach her this art. I could have turned it into a book, and I think many people would have found it interesting. She never responded.
The offer remains open.
Déborah Petit 2009, Google image
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