Shell Girl c. 1910

This sculpture, 'Shell Girl' was made by Janet Scudder. It is cast in bronze and feels like a fragment, an ode, or a distant memory. I can feel the cool surfaces, like touching something from the past. Imagine Janet Scudder, working on this piece. What was she thinking? Did she think of the ocean? And that shell! Was it really in her hand while she worked? Did she feel the weight of it? You know, it’s funny, when you're making something, you're also kind of feeling for something. I wonder what she was feeling for? The girl looks down as if she is deep in thought. I wonder what that means. It reminds me of some of the sculptures by Rodin; there's a feeling of the incomplete and unknown that I love. Artists, you know, we're all just in this big conversation. We look, we try, we fail, we try again. And somehow, something beautiful comes out of it. Something like this 'Shell Girl'.