This new path of exploration has come about through my realization - following some intense discussion with other sculptors - that, in order to achieve a sculpturally accomplished solution on the negative side, I had to move away from working in relief on a board. So I removed the clay relief from its wooden board, prepared a wooden base with two steel rods about 20 cm apart inserted upright into the base and then slid the clay form onto the rods, thus standing the relief up like a 3D sculpture.
The aim in taking it off the board was to enable me to work on the negative side of the clay form instead of leaving that process until the later stage of the jesmonite cast. The concept stems from the basic principle in sculpture that any convex or concave is formed, and only truly works if it is formed, by forces working from both sides, pushing and pulling so to speak.
Look at the way a bud opens up: the intial tightly closed convex form swells and slowly begins to open up, and the swelling and opening up occur primarily because of what is going on inside; the forces on the outside receive, give way to the movement that the life-force within is generating. It's primarily what's going on inside the bud that shapes what happens on the outside.
So, transposing this to the double-sided relief, by working the negative side the positive side is formed and vice versa. And in this particular piece, the 'pushing' force on the negative side persisted to the point where a breakthrough occured, the clay began to tear, to split.
