Grambling Tiger

The Grambling State University Tiger has been installed by Bridgette Mongeon. It has been a long process. The process is documented in this blog with the category Grambling Tiger or the artist has kept a project blog for the client. You can find it at http://gramblingtiger.blogspot.com/

On December 2nd the Tiger left NM to be driven on an open bed semi to Grambling, Louisiana,  and Bridgette Mongeon, the artist, left Houston on that Tuesday to meet the tiger.

A long drive later, early on the morning of Wed the 4th the artist and tiger are united once again. Now for the installation.

The patina is the coloring of the tiger.  The color is created by using chemicals and heat.  It is a very dark cold and long day/evening when we figure out the patina. Once we decide on the color it will take several days to complete the patina.

Once the Grambling Tiger sculpture is sandblasted, I must check it out to be sure that there are not corrections. I walk around the sculpture or in this case, climb around the sculpture looking for places for them to fix. I mark them with a marker and then the foundry men work their magic.  I have a very intimate relationship with this height and this tiger head. 

The foundry works diligently to meet the deadline.  Each of the many pieces of metal must be welded together seamlessly.  Once the cat is almost finished, it is moved from one side of the foundry to the other.

I’m headed to the foundry in New Mexico very soon to monitor the rest of the progress and to do the final coloring of the Grambling State tiger.  Then we will load it up on the flat bed and watch for it to arrive on campus.  Not sure how much posting I’ll be able to do while there. You will get glimmers of the sculpture in the snap shots that I take. Not until the great reveal will you be able to see the entire sculpture complete. Unless… you are in NM on November 16th. I’ll be giving a lecture on “Taming the beast” at Shidoni Foundry.  The lecture will culminate with watching a bronze pour. (Not the tiger as it will be complete.) We will also be able to take a look at the finished tiger.  I can hardly wait.

I’d be happy to repeat this lecture at Grambling for those who are interested.  Looks like we are leaning toward delivery of the sculpture in the first week of December.

The rocks in this Grambling State tiger sculpture are just as massive as the tiger itself.  The many, many pieces of the sculpture are being welded together. The foundry will match my sculpted textures. It is a huge puzzle to figure out where everything goes. There will also be an internal structure inside the sculpture to give it support. 

In the post we saw some the process of pouring the head of the tiger.  Now that the head is poured, the ceramic shell must be broken off of the metal. This is called divesting. I asked the foundry to take a movie of this part. It looks brutal, but it is important.  If you watch the entire thing be sure to look at the how they also much take the shell of the inside the sculpture.

The second part of this video shows them taking the metal spurs off of the sculpture. I especially like the look of this video. Seeing the light from the torch shine through the holes in the sculpture.

Now, this piece will need to be sandblasted to get all of the ceramic shell off of the metal.

There is still much to do with the tiger. If you have been reading this blog you have found that the process of creating a mascot is quite laborious.  Here is the process with links, once again.  Note: there are a lot of other posts of the process in between all of these links below.

• The First blog post –The beginning  June 1, 2012 The blog begins. 
• Design process June 17th – The designing and working on project begins long before the actually sculpting. 
• Approval process  January 23rd- Approvals and final paper work is received by client. 
• Enlargement of Design January 23rd – The enlargement of the sculpture is being made into foam for us to sculpt on. Meanwhile we search for a warehouse to hold this big creature. 
• Foam Armature arrives in Houston.  The CNC milled foam gives us an armature to sculpt on and arrives in Houston in March
• Approval of Sculpture May 27th post. Which means we have sculpted this huge cat in 2 months! this would never be able to be done without the digital technology of CNC milling to enlarge the foam pieces.  It is a huge accomplishment. There were many interns who worked endless long hours. 
• Mold making The sculpture comes a part and we begin the first part of the foundry process the mold making. 
• Molds shipped to Shidoni art Foundry  July 27th They will finish the foundry process. 
• Wax and Sprues or gates Beginning in August the Foundry makes waxes from the molds. 

• Pouring of metal- The pouring of metal happens each weekend at Shidoni art Foundry.

This is what we have accomplished thus far. In the next few weeks the last steps will take place

• Welding
• Patination
• Delivery 
• Installation

Here you can see that the many, many bronze pieces that are poured are now welded together.