“You should do it,” said a friend, and on that speculative basis I showed up on West 8^th Street, sculpting apron in hand, butterflies in stomach. I’d made a small sitting man before, but this was my first try at a life-size figure. Brandt Junceau, our guide for the next two weeks, quickly had us throwing lumps of clay onto a pipe armature before self-doubts could take over. Getting messy was fun and after the first couple of hours I was looking at the live model as a stack of interesting geometrical shapes. By lunch break, sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park among chess players and musicians, I was already feeling like a secret sculptor.

After two days I had body, arms, and legs that already looked vaguely human. I began to wonder how I would stay busy for the next week and a half. Fine-tuning the fingernails? Wasn’t I almost finished? No! The next morning, Brandt’s slideshow of varied sculptures helped me begin to understand what was going on here. Apparently, it wouldn’t be too hard to create a clay person, and her fingernails were not what was at stake. The real challenge was to discover what was particular about this sculpture, in this room, in this year. An imperceptible sense of leaning forward into the world? A hand pressing lightly on a thigh? A head like an elongated teardrop? Could I model not the clay, but light and shadow?

“Try not to use your fingers,” said Brandt, leading me next door to make wooden tools for banging, curving, and scraping the clay. Gradually my piece lost the surface wobbliness caused by my hands, and its face began to look pleasingly enigmatic, even if I was struggling to get symmetrical cheekbones.

By the second week, the clay was drying out, needing frequent spritzing with water. I kept myself hydrated with coffee from Stumptown and found myself entering an almost meditative state of concentration. Pondering the model’s shirt, how did the fabric hang between her shoulder blades? How did gravity affect the creases and folds of cotton?

During lunch and overnight, we wrapped our figures in towels and plastic to keep the clay workable. Our studio, with its circle of shrouded figures, looked eerie and spiritual. I took a photo of my bagged-up sculpture – a random moment of work-in-progress made precious. The Marathon ended with a critique and then our pieces were broken down, the clay restored to be worked again by future students.

The impermanence of the work is part of the gift of the class. Intensively, you make something that will not last. You may have some images, even a 3D scan, but the clay figure, still with her asymmetric cheeks, goes back into the hopper, like the cycle of life.

To make a sculpture, whether you are beginner or expert, requires giving yourself a particular permission. As Brandt put it, you are seeking the inflection: each little kink that contributes a subtle drama, departing from the plumb level and every previous sculpture ever made. In doing so, you find your own expression. I walked out on the last evening, physically tired, my jeans fit for a trash can, seeing the world with new eyes. What a privilege.