When I was 19 years old, I sculpted this "Old Woman", and it was by chance that I sculpted this work.
In the 1980s, one day in the late autumn, the human body class, which had lasted for several weeks, was still in progress, and as usual, my classmates and I came to the classroom early, roasted around the iron stove, and waited for the arrival of the mannequin Xiao Song.
More than an hour has passed, still don't see Xiao Song, see the whole morning is going to be soup, a few of us are roasting the fire, all looking at the door, the fire will roast our faces red, I am more anxious, hot blood!
Can't wait any longer! I ran out of the classroom to the east and west to find the female model Xiao Song.
In the process of searching, I found that more than ten meters away from the classroom, there was a skinny and squatting woman who looked back at me from time to time, and from her deep eye socket I saw a twinkle in her eager eyes, I judged that she wanted to do this job, she must have known that being a model could earn money and fill the family.
I stepped forward and asked, "Old man, would you like to make us a mannequin?"
I was afraid that the old woman did not understand what the mannequin was, adding: "When the mannequin is asked to strip naked"!
Listening to it, the old woman's expression suddenly became tense and contradictory, and I noticed that the muscles of her face tightened strangely, and her face gradually darkened, and the contracted muscles deepened the wrinkles and squeezed out a series of white and yellow lines.
The old woman's lips trembled and said:
"I... I'm embarrassed to go! Not good to go"!
But her eyes and body were fixed, but always in the direction of our classroom.
You can see that the old woman is struggling! She knows herself to be ugly, but after all, she is a woman, after all, she can't show strangers, especially students like me who are less than twenty years old, completely show her aging ugly body.
The old woman was struggling! If acquaintances know how to talk about it, how will wives and children know how to insult...
Ten minutes have passed, the old woman is still standing still, her eyes are still fixed on our classroom, as if the person who is about to starve suddenly sees a food within reach, I think as long as you give the old woman a little face and a little external force, I hold the old woman's arm and say: "The old man we are an art college, you give us models to help us, is to do good deeds, and then we will give you money, no less than you sell onions, ginger and garlic to earn less, you just stand still, if you are tired, you can rest at any time." Saying that I pulled the old man a little, the old woman followed me to the classroom, and between survival, face and self-esteem, the old woman chose to survive.
Looking at the classmates who wanted to wear it, when they saw me bringing an old woman with a thin and alien shape, they suddenly laughed wildly, and the laughter was mixed with ridicule: "Li Gang, your taste is too heavy!" It's disgusting! What an appetite"!
With strange laughter and noise, the classroom fell silent, leaving me and the frightened old woman in the corner, who looked like a wild old monkey who had been brought into the human world.
How much I want to dispel the ridicule and disrespect that this group of young people add to the old people! I looked at her calmly and gently, trying to pass on all my kindness...
Gradually, the old woman calmed down, and while chatting with me about homely things, she took off her clothes and pants one by one...
The warm current of the iron stove and the warm color of the furnace light reflect the old and withered body more and more clearly.
Apparently, the old woman was not hygienically prepared to be a nude model, and the smell of early humans filled the space of the small classroom.
At the age of 19, I saw the naked bodies of elderly women, which was indeed a visual experience that had never been seen before, youth and old age, abundance and dryness, fresh and lively and stale and stiff images in my brain constantly changing... It is really difficult for me to connect what I see in front of my eyes with the beautiful women in life, the goddesses in art works...
I looked at the old woman in front of me, lost in thought, her dry and drooping breasts, in order to satisfy the greedy sucking of the children, her deformed body for the hardships of having to live, her wrinkles full of social and family pressure,
She has also had skin like gelatin, jade bone ice muscles, and has also evoked the steps of men chasing...
And now she has been used up, like a piece of paper, turned into ashes in the wind and drifted with the wind...
The old woman frightened away several of my classmates because of "ugly", they had no intention of going to class, so that I could calm down, with respect and pity for the old woman sculpture, I according to the inner vision, for the old woman to set up various poses, but always can not be the same, I was silent, thinking that with my youthful heart, how can I understand the elderly woman, I locked my brows and thought about the way the old woman worried, she moved to the corner with self-blame, her hands were tightly pressed against her thighs, looking at me with trepidation.
"Good! Good! Good! Just like that, it's this action", I was suddenly excited, this is a good dynamic that is consistent on the surface.
In the process of sculpting the old woman for more than ten days, the old man returned my respect for her with motionlessness, and when I sculpted, I felt that the air was frozen, and the mud that had been kneaded and touched by my hands seemed to have a life, and suddenly came alive, I felt as if these hands were detached from my body, sculpting independently, and I became a bystander, and I had this magical feeling for the first time when I was nineteen.
In the past ten days of the old man as a model, I have always respected and pitied her, the old man seems to be much younger, and even has a girlish feeling, he can kick the shuttlecock naked in front of me, and affectionately call me "Little Steel Brother".