Joan Steacy's Studio and Blog

Looking back at my grade one class picture, on the bottom row you see a boy with glasses named Kenny - not Kenny Steacy, but it's amazing how much he looked like Ken in the photo below taken around the same time. I found this interesting because Kenny was my first crush, and he used to walk me home from school and buy me liquorice! One of life's amazing random co-incidences.

And who would have though I'd still be friends with Cathy, the girl beside me next to the teacher. We were both born in December, the smallest kids in the class - and we're the same giggly girls we always were! It's funny how I remember certain things in my school days, like playing in the snow at recess. I loved to carve objects out of the hard packed snow. Another thing that sticks in my mind was when I made a telephone, one for me and one for my friend Cathy, then we would chat about things. The kids today probably make cell phones. Later on in my sculpting career I did a sculpture titled Phonehenge carved out of lime stone with a Photoshopped background.

I was also commissioned to do this marble sculpture, titled Orpheus. Carving it reminded me of the sparkly snow in Ontario, which is much easier to sculpt! It doesn't snow much here in Victoria but when it does I really love to see the individual patterns of the snowflakes. I read some books that got me thinking of how we are very much like snowflakes, all the same but differing in the paths we take in life, the fluctuations we encounter on our journey making us who we are. For further context I highly recommend these two books: The Turbulent Mirror, and Looking Glass Universe, both by John P. Briggs and F. David Peat.