After an epic retrospective of Giacometti’s work at MOMA, I bought self-hardening clay.
This first—and last—bust mushed thin sixty plus years ago, fixated, like the master sculptor,
on the nose. The shadow dance of green dents record in aged color, the passion and passivity eroding the lava of my years. All first sculptures being self- portraits—it’s said—what was

Giacometti thinking
as he tore more and more
clay off armatures, fashioning
human presence in space.
His fierce desire to see true
form turned a live model’s
two-week contract into five
years. All day long—every
day—the same model. Tearing
handfuls of clay off armature.
Constructing what his eyes saw.
She became pencil thin and tall,
a gnarled abstract sapling. Hollow
gouges, abrasions—until a rapture
happened: “when the nose is right,
I stop.” Giacometti’d found a perfume
of what is—really is, perhaps—an intake
we breathe unfiltered—up, around,
into time’s spiral staircase. There
descending/ascending does heart
give its imprimatur to art?