Bronze
Mmmmm. Leftovers.
08/11/07 13:06 Filed in: Sculpture
I did a small commission for a woman who was heading up
her own real estate group - "Blue Moon". It was a fun
experience, as I haven't done any smaller works like
this, where client interaction is taking place just
like on the bigger projects. We played around with
different designs until finding something we both
liked. This is what we arrived at.
Click on the image to see more of the chronology of the design.
What does this have to do with leftovers? The Blue Moon piece included a crescent of silicon bronze, which my laser guys don't keep in stock - I had to buy a full 2 ft. by 10 ft. piece. Needless to say, I had a lot of leftover material. (A-Ha!) I've always really loved the volumes and shapes of horses, so I thought I'd just quickly model something up - a horse head - to use up that bronze sheet. It was mostly just a lark, I didn't really intend to come up with anything too special - but I'm really pleased with how it turned out.
There is an area of discoloration that occurs adjacent to each weld, called the Heat Affected Zone (HAZ), that can include gorgeous reds, blues, and purples - I've always loved that stuff. On this piece, I decided to just let it be, to not cave in and grind the welds back or do anything else to obscure them. Bronze is 95% copper, which is highly reactive to environmental acids and chemicals, so you have to seal it somehow in order to keep it from changing colors. Clear powder coat to the rescue.
Click on the image to see more of the chronology of the design.
What does this have to do with leftovers? The Blue Moon piece included a crescent of silicon bronze, which my laser guys don't keep in stock - I had to buy a full 2 ft. by 10 ft. piece. Needless to say, I had a lot of leftover material. (A-Ha!) I've always really loved the volumes and shapes of horses, so I thought I'd just quickly model something up - a horse head - to use up that bronze sheet. It was mostly just a lark, I didn't really intend to come up with anything too special - but I'm really pleased with how it turned out.
There is an area of discoloration that occurs adjacent to each weld, called the Heat Affected Zone (HAZ), that can include gorgeous reds, blues, and purples - I've always loved that stuff. On this piece, I decided to just let it be, to not cave in and grind the welds back or do anything else to obscure them. Bronze is 95% copper, which is highly reactive to environmental acids and chemicals, so you have to seal it somehow in order to keep it from changing colors. Clear powder coat to the rescue.
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Welding Bronze for Ostermiller
09/02/07 12:31 Filed in: Memoirs
Hmmm. I found this image, with a date on the back,
which contradicts my guess for the date on the previous
post's pic. This was taken in March of 1989 - I was
working for Dan Ostermiller at that time, doing
point-ups (enlarging small sculptures into biguns) and
welding them together. The location is at the old
Loveland Sculpture Works building. That's Nancy, Dan,
Tim Cherry, me, and Kevin Fitchner, along with a few
thousand pounds of cast bronze critters. Kevin was the
first welding teacher I had - he was also a dairy
farmer, and would get up every day at 4 am, milk his
cows, come to the shop for a day of welding and
grinding, then return home to milk a second time. He
averaged about 5 hours of sleep a night. Needless to
say, he quit working for Dan shortly after this picture
was taken, and I took up the job of managing Dan's
production.
The Tropism piece from the previous post was done when I worked for Kent Ullberg, which was after working for Dan. So 1990 is more accurate for a date on that pic.
The Tropism piece from the previous post was done when I worked for Kent Ullberg, which was after working for Dan. So 1990 is more accurate for a date on that pic.
