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Once the ideas for our work are formed clearly in our minds we use a host of techniques to bring them to life. |
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| Most of the originals for the
animals and smaller vessels are made of clay. I was a potter for
many years, so working with moist clay and firing it in a kiln comes
very naturally to me. When I want to do a relief carving, such as on
the top of Rhino Bowl or Albatross Vase, I usually pour plaster over the
wheel-thrown clay top and then carve the pattern I want in the plaster.
A new piece of clay is pressed in the plaster mold and fired in a kiln to
create the original model for the piece. When I want an animal with very
tiny detail, such as small toes and tails, to blend into the surface of
the form, I build them directly onto the form such as the two iguanas on
the Iguana Vessels or the lizard on the obelisk. I love to
work with very simple, quiet tools.
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| Joe, on the other hand, likes to work on a larger scale generally, and this is where the "big and usually noisier" equipment comes in. Without the furnace, hydraulic press, welders, and metal hammers, we would be severely limited in what we could create. Most of our larger vessels and sculptures are either formed from sheet bronze on a hydraulic press and welded together, or sand cast in our foundry. The large "Ancient Beings" sculptures are cut out of sheet bronze and curved with many small bends on a very large brake before they are welded and ground into the smooth sentinel sculptures. The legs on the base of "The Nest" sculptures are formed from actual sticks over which Joe makes bonded sand molds and then pours molten bronze into the hollow forms. |
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Wax Casting All of the animals and smaller vessels and sculptures as well as some of the larger pieces, such as the fish and the tops for the some of the large vessels, are made by lost wax casting techniques. A rubber mold is made over the original clay piece; this mold can be used between 25 and 50 times. Molten wax is poured into the rubber mold creating a wax duplicate of the original. Some of the smaller pieces (shelf creatures and smaller detail animals) are solid; other sculptures (Toad on Sphere, Lizard Vase) are hollow. After any flashing or defects are fixed on the waxes, you have an exact replica of the original. From here we can either "invest" them in plaster or cover the wax with a ceramic shell which is then fired in a kiln; in either case, the plaster or shell is heated to burn out all the wax (hence the term "lost wax casting"), and the plaster or ceramic shell is hardened. While still hot from the kiln the molten bronze is poured into the ceramic shell or plaster and fills the space where the wax used to be. You now have a bronze replica of the original. This bronze replica has "gating" attached to it where the bronze was poured in and requires "chasing" (removing gating and fixing any defects) to complete the process.
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Clay |
Wax |
Bronze |
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Fabrication Many of our more sculptural pieces are formed of sheet bronze which is pounded, bent, and pressed into shapes to create most of our fountains and our other less traditional forms such as the Horn Sculpture and the Stork Sculpture. Some of the textural details (small bricks) on the Stork Sculpture are created using acid etching on the surface of the bronze. Many of our sculptures are a combination of sheet and cast elements. The base of the Jellyfish Vessel and the front of the Stingray Sculpture are sand cast and welded to the rest of the piece, which is constructed of sheet bronze. Sand casting is great for duplicating simple textures such as the slate texture on the bases of the Stork, Crow, and Stingray Sculptures. A bonded sand mold is made over a piece of slate and molten bronze is poured into the hollow. All of this requires a tremendous amount of welding and grinding, grinding and welding.
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Patination The final step to add color and highlight to our pieces is the patination process. Many of our sculptures have polished surfaces over which we use translucent patinas, such as the brown and gold. We sand blast surfaces for the black, green/black, and green patinas because they require the surface to have a certain "bite" for the patina to adhere. Most of our patinas are "hot" patinas, applied with a brush or spray in one hand and a torch in the other. For many pieces we use a regular kitchen oven to heat the pieces to about175 degrees before we start to apply the patina. The blacks are achieved with liver of sulfur, the greens with nitrates of copper, the browns with nitrates of iron, the silvers with nitrates of silver and the golds with very weak concentrations of nitrates of copper. |
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