Off With His Head, His Arms And…
My apprentice, Russo, and I began the mold making process of the Dick Hathaway sculpture which consists of cutting him up into smaller sections. This freaked Russo out, especially when we cut off the head of the sculpture. My favorite tool in this process is my reciprocating saw. I love this tool, it also comes in handy when trying to divide plants in the garden! I laughed so hard at the expression on Russo’s face as we cut off the body parts and she handed them to me.
This sculpture is created for the TW Wood Gallery in Vermont. Sculptor Bridgette Mongeon has created an entire project blog at https://dickhathaway.blogspot.com/
You may also want to watch the three videos created for this project
The sculpting
The casting
The delivery and installation
The Completed Sculpture Before The Mold Making
Here is a photograph of the Dick Hathaway sculpture just before he went into mold. Bridgette Mongeon will complete the casting of the sculpture before it is sent to its permanent resting place at the TW Wood Gallery in Montpellier, Vermont.
This sculpture is created for the TW Wood Gallery in Vermont. Sculptor Bridgette Mongeon has created an entire project blog at https://dickhathaway.blogspot.com/
You may also want to watch the three videos created for this project
The sculpting
The casting
The delivery and installation
My Apprentice Is An Exchange Student
I have not posted anything about Russo yet. She is an exchange student that has been helping me in the studio. Here is a picture of her working on Professor Hathaway. Russo is from Georgia.
I Have Plaster Under My Finger Nails
Yes, it is grueling work creating this mold of Richard Hathaway. About day 4 I say to myself, ” Yes, the foundry should get $6-7,000. to make such a mold!” But it is part of my donation. I’ll post pictures soon, well as soon as I can get the clay, rubber, plaster off of my fingers and shoes to be able to spend some time up here at the computer.
This sculpture is created for the TW Wood Gallery in Vermont. Sculptor Bridgette Mongeon has created an entire project blog at https://dickhathaway.blogspot.com/
You may also want to watch the three videos created for this project
The sculpting
The casting
The delivery and installation
It Pays To Pay Someone Who Knows What They Are Doing
I am excited because I have hired a professional to help with some areas of my website that I just could not figure out, and they did it! There is a bit more they will do and you will soon see this blog with a header and the colors of my https://creativesculpture.com website!
It Is All In The Details
Just finishing up the details on this sculpture.
Who can forget those expressive hands.
I love this shot. The door is there. The pond behind it, and Dick looks like he is saying goodbye. Time to go home!
This sculpture is created for the TW Wood Gallery in Vermont. Sculptor Bridgette Mongeon has created an entire project blog at https://dickhathaway.blogspot.com/
You may also want to watch the three videos created for this project
The sculpting
The casting
The delivery and installation
A New Sculpture And A Worthy Cause
I mentioned that I was creating a sculpture of a woman and child on a rock for a special music presentation by the Houston Choral society. Here is a photograph of the completed sculpture and information about the event.
http://www.houstonchoral.org/season
May 2, 2008
Concert at 7:30 p.m.
Our special 20th Anniversary event to be held in the Cullen Theater at the Wortham Center. We will present a commissioned work by Adolphus Hailstork. This concert is a fund-raising event for Neighborhood Centers Inc., a private, nonprofit agency that provides social services to hundreds of thousands of Houston’s low-income children, families and senior citizens.
Why Is It Taking So Long?
Someone called and posed that question. A normal bronze life-size commission can take anywhere from six months to a year depending on the schedule of the foundry. However, the memorial sculpture of Richard Hathaway is not normal. The sculpting and half of the foundry fees were donated by myself. The balance of the foundry fees was raised through the efforts of the TW Wood gallery and the loving people of Vermont. That took some time. Now they we are both working on finding the money to bring him home. Meanwhile… I would not proceed with the bronze process until I had the money from the TW Wood gallery. I have been told it is going to be mailed this week. So Dick Hathaway is being all spruced up to go into the mold making process. I expect this to happen next week. I’ll record it and of course create another video of the process as promised.
This sculpture is created for the TW Wood Gallery in Vermont. Sculptor Bridgette Mongeon has created an entire project blog at https://dickhathaway.blogspot.com/
You may also want to watch the three videos created for this project
The sculpting
The casting
The delivery and installation
Is It The Paranormal Or….
imagination? I asked this question in the book that I wrote on sculpting the deceased ( still looking for a publisher) I have had a difficult time with the terms paranormal or psychic, so calling it my imagination appears to be safer.
If you ask some of the parents of my subjects if there is a connection between myself and the deceased they would most likely say yes. One mother said she was almost jelouse. Though most don’t realize that my connection, if there is one is through their love and the bonds that they share.
This morning in the space between awake and asleep I was holding a baby. She slept so soundly and the feeling, as it is when you are holding a sleeping baby, was amazing. I kissed her forehead, and breathed in that baby smell. In my joy of that moment I asked, “who do you belong to?” I know of no babies in my awakening state. No sooner had I said it that the thought came into my mind. This is Jenna! Because I was in that in between state the thought of holding Jenna woke me up. Quickly I closed my eyes and tried to lull myself back to sleep to study her. Look at her features and I always want to look at the hands. I only returned momentarily.
Picking A Pose For A Sculpture To Represent A Life Live
It can’t be easy trying to pick a pose of your child that you want to represent an entire life, the emotion between two individuals or this special persons interaction with the entire world. I think for the most part both Jenna’s mom and I depend on intuition, or maybe even a little guidance from Jenna. Taking some suggestions from Jenna’s mom on a possible revision of poses I raised the head, but intuitively the hand needed to be raised. The pose is the same otherwise.
How about taking out the lower part of the headstone? It changes the feel of the sculpture entirely. Something we may or may not want to consider. When I first saw pictures of Jenna I thought, “she will be in ballet or perhaps Cirque du Soleil” She just seemed to have an intuition about her own body and expressed all emotion through it.
Looking over the few photographs that I have on my computer she is constantly raising one leg. I am really not sure how she did this without losing her balance. I guess I call it a body squeal. Her body cannot contain the joy. I gave her this same enthusiasm in the one-seated post but took out the idea of her sock and replaced it with a butterfly (represented in the poser figure as a ball). I pulled her headstone behind her a bit so as to balance her in her squeal.
Jenna’s mom often referred to the finger plays that they used to do together. I know very little about them but if I close my eyes I can picture Jenna’s enthusiasm, her verbal and body squeals. I pushed the creativity a bit further and decided to shape Jenna’s left hand in a different pose. Instead of an open hand or a pointing finger that might appear in this pose, I shaped her left hand into the sign language shape for “I love you”. As a hidden message to her family and a representation of this very precious game between mom and child.
It was down to the two poses, crawling over the headstone, and taking off the sock. Now I put more things in the mix. I don’t know if this will confuse Jenna’s parents or help them solidify the process. From past experiences of creating posthumous sculpture it usually just all works itself out.
Don’t you just love this Poser program! Making changes and seeing it from all directions is so wonderful.
If you want to see any of the photographs larger, just click on the image.