How It’s Made
Creating a sculpture in stone involves a complex process ideas and senses. First comes the idea or concept. When creating a representational work, the idea is to sculpt a form that looks like, a human figure, animal or other object. This type of sculpture is more confining because the sculpture should look exactly like the idea you creating, be it, a bust, torso, full figure or animal. Selecting the stone to accomplish this task can be challenging because of size, color, material. This leaves little room for error, because if the stone breaks in the wrong place then the whole sculpture is ruined. The other side of this problem can lead me into another direction and that the sculpture more into a contemporary look rather than a realistic one. Its important to study the stone carefully to detect if there are any hidden defects. This is usually done by sounding the stone. This done by hitting the stone with a hammer to see if the is a “ring”. A ring signifies that there are no cracks or defects in the stone because the sound travels through the stone without hitting any defects. This is the best type of stone to use. Creating free forms or contemporary shapes is the most fun. This is because the stone plays a role in suggesting the outcome of the sculpture. Both processes take a lot of time and energy using various tools such as hammers, chisels, air hammers, air chisels, grinders, sand paper, files and polishing materials to create the final product
Raw Stone | Rough Out Stage 1 | Rough Out Stage 2 | ||
First Sanding | Second Sanding | Third Sanding | ||
Finished Sculpture | ||||
Creating a fused glass sculpture is a many facetted process. Fusable glass is a special glass manufactured to be used in a special glass filn. The glasss comes in flat sheets in either 2mm or 3 mm thick. Thesheets come insizes 2 feet by 4 feet which then can be cut into the desired lenghtns needed for the project.TheThe glass comes in a multitude of colors and textures as well. When creating a sculpture the glass is cut to the desired shapes and placed together on a kiln fireing shelf. This shelf is placed in the kiln which has various program times to fuse the glass to a specific outcome. In order to create a 3 dimensional sculpture the glass has to be fired several times to create the final sculpture. In the first firing the glass comes out flat. In order to create depth and volum heat resistant molds are made that the glass can conform to. So in fact the mold is a sculpture that the glass will become. The process for the glass to conform to the mold is called slumping becacuare the glass actually melts or slumps to the shape of the mold. This takes another firing step in the kiln. When I make a torso sculpture the front and the back are made seperatly,then joined together which special glues to make one figure. Each firing process takes 12 -16 hours to comple and there are several kiln firing for each stage until the sculpture is complete.
1st Stage | Cut Pieces | 1st Fuse | Final Fuse |
Front Half | Back Half | Finished Sculptures | |
Working In cement requires a lot more time and patience then working in other materials. First of all rather than being a taking away process as with stone ,working in cement is like working in clay since it is a buildup process. Armatures or frames are made to how the shape of the sculpture and the cement is added in stages to build up the mass of the form. Also reinforcement material is added to give added strength to the sculpture. These materials can include chicken wire, wire wool and rebar. The fishing process is very time sensitive because the cement needs to be worked its various setting stages. The final result creates the most durable outdoor sculpture.
Beginning Of Cement Sculpture | Large Cement Sculpture in Progress | |
Shapes at Work on the Cement Sculpture | Large Cement Sculpture on Hoist | Finished Sculpture |