The Makings

Jenny Fitzgibbon 2014 Sculpture on the Edge

Sculptors are a creative lot. They need lots of bits and pieces to have around as fuel for their creative fires. “The Makings” is a humorous look at life in a sculptor’s household. This is a work of fiction. All of those similarities to real, actual, local sculptors were accidental, honest. No husbands were harmed in the research for this song.

I’ve had a good life as child sister and wife

Through all drama and strife I’ve continues to thrive

But I find myself now with a well-furrowed brow

A-and wondering how I will ever survive

I’ve tried all narcotics to cure my neurotics

vitaMINS pro-biotics knocked back by the score

I’ve gone out to the flicks my distraction to fix

But despite all the tricks my mind is still sore

It slowly did start when from work I did part

And I thought “Now this Art – that’s what I’d like to make

There in each gallery the art that spoke to me

Was without doubt 3-D so some classes I’d take

“A raw materials pool is the big golden rule”

The teacher did school in such passionate strains

“You cannot have enough of tough, scuffed, fluffy, rough

Fascinating old stuff for your fertile right brains”

Being greenish in nature, loving all native cr’atures

The Natural way, sure, would shine in my work

Palm fronds, graceful grass, pretty sticks I can’t pass

Bones of possum or Ass, they all come home to lurk.

We once had a big shed, a guest room with 2 beds

An attic overhead – space for living the dream

But with all my walk-takings to gather “The Makings”

My four walls were breaking apart at the seams

Now my partner’s not chatty, keeps things under his hat, he

Has told me I’m batty, he now moaned distraught

“Loft to cellar is full with sticks paper and wool

Our house un-useable for the purpose t’was bought

Sheet tin with nice rusting has the dining-room busting

And from each corner thrusting a pale driftwood tree

Then he said after lunch, “This is it, the big crunch

Look I love you a bunch, but it’s The Makings or me.”

So at Sculpture on the Edge I booked me a ledge

To my man I did pledge of my stuff I’d get free

Each gem of material, of value imperial

Indeed made a serial hoarder of me

Now our house it is spacious My man again gracious

I’m no longer rapacious I tell you no lies

I weaved my whole collection in a massive erection

In the people’s choice section it might get a prize!

(Tune for next four lines is same as last four lines of each verse)

Still from morning to night I am filled with delight

Though I got a wee fright it won’t alter my head

Art-less I am not, my new sculptures I plot

For my man didn’t spot what was hid ‘neath the bed!