“The inspiration for this piece came from a picture postcard I found while cleaning out my desk drawer. It delighted me with the image of a Pre-Columbian terra cotta depicting a compact, seated male figure riding a turtle. As a rule, when I begin a sculpture, I have a vague concept of the finished piece. In this case, however, the instant I discovered the postcard, a vision of the entire piece formed immediately in my mind’s eye. In my version, however, a sensual young woman replaced the man in his leading role, paddling not atop a turtle, but on an impossibly high stack of pillows.
In Navigating a Dream, as in much of my recent work, the surface detail is an integral aspect of the sculpture and adds visual complexity to the piece. After seeing Sol Lewitt’s exhibition of wall drawings at the Mass. MOCA in 2010, I was inspired to begin drawing in graphite pencil on my sculptural work. The smooth texture of the pillows served as the perfect foundation for this type of suface exploration, and I enjoyed imagining a variety of bold, graphic motifs to carry this young dreamer on her surreal adventure. Textile patterns such as animal skins, checkerboards, dots and stripes suggest the patterns of a magic carpet ride.”
Claudia Olds Goldie earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from Boston University College of Fine Arts. She has received numerous fellowships and awards for her work, which has been widely published in books and magazines. She leads workshops and teaches sculpture at Dexter Southfield School in Brookline, MA.