Sculpture
Back to Dick Hathaway
The life size sculpture of Dick Hathaway has been brought back to the center of the studio. He will be getting my full attention, or as full as it can be with other things needing to be done in the office and studio. Unfortunately we have had a few very hot days here and with the stress of moving the piece a few things have broken off of Dick Hathaway. It could be a devastating thing; however, I know the pieces, elbow, leg, hand will go back on. The silly thing is that no sooner do we put them back on and finish Dick, then they will have to come back off. I hesitated in cutting this piece up for mold, because the T.W. Woods Gallery in Vermont is still trying to get the balance to cast him. And once I cut the sculpture apart and create molds and wax, it will not go back together again until it is in bronze. I will miss having Dick Hathaway around, but it is time. time to get him ready to go back to his Green Mountain state and to make room for more life-size pieces.
Lucas Went Home
The sculpture of the bronze little boy with a cape went home last week. I watched them package him up and send him home. It has been a while. I am sure the mom is anxious to see him. It was strange, the day the truck came for Lucas, my own child was moving away from home. More goodbyes!
Metal Check
Today I went to the foundry to look at the metal – the bust and the mom and baby. At this point the foundry asks me to examine the sculpture and see if there is anything that needs to be fixed. Both of the pieces have a base coat on them already. This makes the metal easier to see. I have indicated some changes and next week the foundry will be putting a patina on the sculptures. I can not wait to see them complete!
The little seated child also is out of the studio. A mold is being made of him. He is green ware and extremely fragile, I will be glad when he is done.
A New Article About My Work- Newsboy
There is a new article about the newsboy that can be found on this link
It is a pdf, scroll to page 4 North Carolina Press Association newsletter. (This link no longer available.)
Here is quote from the article written by Brian Rapp,
Rusty Carter, Horaces’ son and president of the Tribune’s parent company, Atlantic Corp.
“A lot of times you never know what you’ll get with a sculpture unless you buy it off the shelf, but it turned out better than I ever expected. We’ve already gotten an extraordinary amount of comment about it from all over the region.”
The Sculpture Goes Back To Center Stage
Bryan has been working diligently on Dick Hathaway’s satchel, and we moved the sculpture back to the center of the room. It is time to finish Dick Hathaway and get him home to Vermont.
Onward
The mom and baby are at the foundry, along with the portrait bust. I should hear back any day now and am looking forward to seeing them. The sculpture of David is complete, but I do need to cast him in something. Onward or shall I say back to Dick Hathaway. This is a sculpture that I have been working on for a while. The TW Wood Gallery in Vermont has been trying to raise funds for the casting of the piece. It is of my former professor Richard Hathaway.
Bryan has been working on the clay satchel of books that sits at the feet of Dick. And yesterday we moved Dick to the center of the room again.
Dick Hathaway Takes Center Atage…
It has been months since I have worked on the sculpture of Dick. I have put him aside waiting for the rest of the funding to come through. I heard the T.W. Woods Gallery is getting very close to having the funding. As I have said before, I will have to cut the sculpture up into pieces to cast it into bronze. I hate the idea of Dick going to pieces without knowing he will soon be put back together.
I have pulled Dick center stage for a couple of reasons. The first is that my new apprentice Bryan is doing such a wonderful job I know we can work through this quickly with his help. And I’m feeling that it is way beyond the time of sending Dick home to the Green Mountain State. Maybe he can be there by fall, and if not maybe by sugaring. Though we would have to be sure the ground was not sill ice so that we could install the sculpture. I can’t wait!
It is sometimes good to get away from a sculpture for a while. Rarely do I have the opportunity to do so. Commissions come and have deadlines and it means working one after another. But walking away from a sculpture and coming back gives you an entirely different perspective. I can’t wait, give me the pot of hot clay, the large tools. Time to finish the upper torso of Dick Hathaway and then the details in the face.
Busy With Various Things.
The studio has been busy. Bryan has been helping out with the Dick Hathaway satchel and also has helped on the molds for both the life size bust and the wax of the woman and baby. He is a good worker and a pleasure to have around. As I stated before, we are documenting that entire process of mold making on the new forum. We took a tour of the foundry when picking up the wax of the life size bust. Bryan has been with me for only two weeks and has had quite a bit of exposure to the entire foundry process. Next week he will learn to work on waxes as we will be pouring many waxes and working on them at the studio. Besides mom and baby and the bust we will be working on seven small newsboy sculptures.
I have been enjoying working on sculpting the small baby. The head is not attached as I alternate between boy and head. The head has a dowel in it that attaches to the body. I had to replace it with a longer one as it fell off once and smashed on the floor. Little heads are hard to keep on in clay, I have had this happen before. I still have a lot of work to do on this piece but it is a very pleasant distraction from mold making and computer stuff.
Approval, And On to The Next Part.
My client came by today and brought his wife to see the mom and baby sculpture. As I said before he was creating this for her for her birthday. She loved it and was so surprised. I’m glad I could give her something to remember her birthday by, but sad that I could not send her home with the bronze today. It was important to me to work hard for her to have something to look at on her birthday. It was a long night but I did it and both she and her husband seemed pleased. I think it is a good piece and I am glad it is going bronze limited edition of ten. The other detailed version will not be going to bronze until I find a buyer for it.
I also received approval for the bust of the man shown below. So they will both going into the foundry process next week.
Simplified!
After days of doing the detailed version of the mom and baby I spent the night working on the simplified version. Ugggg… I groaned, searching for inspiration in contemporary sculpture books. Funny it feels like I had to get the detailed version, the emotions and passion from it to get capture that it the simplified version. Hubby came in and said, try this, this and this. I don’t think it was anything anyone had to say or advise. I just think sometimes you need to spend time with a piece. Enough time and enough pushing and you get to what you were after, even if you never knew what that was supposed to be when you started.
I also though I would post this little tiny head from the other version. I always think it is funny when I am holding a tiny little body part in my hand. I think I am just drawn to miniature things- dollhouses, and stories of little people.
