The Portfolio Under Question: Dates, Copies, and the Viva
At the viva, a candidate places a portfolio on the table: 12 photographs of work, 8 dated sketches, and 3 small maquettes. The record says the plaster cast was made on 14 August, but the photograph's file date is 2 September and the cast appears against a different backdrop. One sketch is a careful copy of a temple sculpture from a library book, labelled 'original composition'; the book is not cited. Two maquettes are clearly derived from the same seated figure, but the candidate cannot say which came first. The external examiner asks: 'Which decision in this portfolio are you least sure about, and what would you do differently?' The candidate has five minutes, the marks for the record are 10 out of 30, and the internal marks are already submitted. The candidate's teacher is absent.
1. What should the candidate do before the viva about the mislabelled sketch and the date discrepancy? What must not be done?
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The candidate must not alter the sketch, backdate it, or remove the file. The professional move is to prepare a short correction sheet before the viva: cite the library book, relabel the sketch as 'study after a temple sculpture, not an original composition', and explain the date discrepancy if there is evidence - for example, the cast was made on 14 August, but the photograph was taken later against a different backdrop after the cast had dried. If there is no evidence, say that the record is incomplete and that the date in the record is the making date while the file date is the photograph date.
What not to do: do not claim the copy as original, do not invent a process photograph, and do not blame the teacher. The examiner is testing integrity as much as skill. A candidate who says 'this label is wrong, here is the correction, and here is what I learned about source credit' is in a stronger position than one who defends a false label. The correction sheet should be dated and signed and kept with the portfolio.
2. How should the candidate answer 'Which decision are you least sure about?' in five minutes to gain marks, not lose them?
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Use a four-part answer, not a confession. Context: 'I had one cast to make, a leather-hard head with an undercut chin, and 8 kg of plaster.' Options: 'A permanent piece mould would have preserved the clay, but I had never made one; a waste mould would destroy the clay but give one cast.' Decision and evidence: 'I chose a two-part waste mould because the undercut would lock a one-piece mould and the deadline did not allow a test piece mould. I keyed the halves and used a greased rod for the ear hole.' What I would change: 'I would test the shim line on a small maquette first, because my split under the jaw was too low.'
That structure shows judgement, constraint, and reflection. The candidate should choose a real uncertainty, not a trivial one, and should not say 'I am not sure about everything'. Five minutes is enough for one decision chain. If the examiner pushes, the candidate can add what evidence would have changed the decision: more plaster, more time, or a flexible mould material. The marks are for reasoning, not for a perfect result.
3. How should the record of work be organised so that process, sources, and failures are visible? Give a checklist.
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A good record is a process argument, not a scrapbook. Checklist:
- Dated entries for each stage: source, maquette, armature, modelling, mould, cast, finish, mounting.
- Source credits for every book, museum photograph, or online image; label each as 'copy', 'study after', or 'original composition'.
- Material tests: clay shrinkage, plaster ratios, release agents, surface finishes, failures included.
- Scale and view: a ruler or familiar object in photographs; front, side, and three-quarter views.
- Corrections: dated errata sheets rather than overwriting old pages.
- Reflection: two or three lines on what failed and what changed next time.
- Viva index: tabbed pages for the three or four decisions the candidate wants to discuss.
For the next batch, the teacher should require a source-credit line on every page and a photographic record of the mould before casting. That prevents the date and copy problems in this case. The record should make the examiner's question easy to answer because the evidence is already visible.