Candice Glicken

After a horrendous freshman year in high school, I decided to take art courses. Placed in an advanced French I class and never having taken French before, plus taking chemistry for science-brilliant students, which I wasn’t, I needed something to improve my high school experience.  Art classes were the answer!

Sophomore year I took a basic art class in which we did some printmaking. I cut a linoleum tile of Harry’s Grill and the surrounding stores in downtown Deerfield.  I still have a scar on my leg from the exercise. Even so, I loved the class.

Senior year I took a painting class.  I can still see the abstract and bizarre paintings I came up with. I suspect I might have needed therapy. However, junior year was my favorite art class, sculpture.

One assignment was to shape a sculpture from chicken wire, cover it in plaster and paint it. My dark brown sculpture looked like a dead flower throwing up. Bless my mother, she displayed everything I created. The next assignment was to do a clay sculpture of my head.

The face had to have some expression other than an ordinary smile. We couldn’t start our project until a drawing of our idea had been approved.

I sat on the bathroom vanity, looking in the mirror for hours, trying to come up with something unusual. I was stumped until I finally came up with my “signature” half-smile. My idea was finally approved. The clay we were given to use was full of tiny pieces of plaster. I have no idea where the stuff came from, but you’d think Deerfield High School could have popped for some new clay! Now I had to pick out the plaster pieces from the clay or it would explode when fired in the kiln. If not fired, it would disintegrate rapidly. I spent hours picking pieces of plaster out of the clay so I could fire my sculpture. I finally gave up and decided I wouldn’t chance firing the piece and possibly break someone else’s sculpture in the kiln.

My work on my head was moving along at last! Everyone was busy creating their self-portrait masterpiece. Smoothing, texturing, and shaping – we were future Rodins. After toiling for several days, I was finished! The smile was perfect. I had texture, shape, and my facial characteristics to a T.

The heads were displayed in the showcase by the library, at first without names. Everyone who walked by and knew me, KNEW that head was me. People stopped me in the halls complimenting me on my sculpture. Kudos galore were showered on me by teachers and students alike. When grades were given out, I ended up with an A-.

I felt it should have been at least an A, but my teacher thought it took me too long to come up with my unusual expression. Oh, yes, and I didn’t fire it.

FYI, 50 years later, it’s still fully intact and displayed in my home.