Eight-Foot Whale in Bronze
I live and have my studio in a fishing town where the ocean is very important to the economy. This sculpture is of a humpback whale destined for a local restaurant with big ambitions. In the photo, the clay model is done but we are getting it ready for the waste mold. It is then followed with a plaster cast... then to be followed with a rubber mold... then to be followed by a wax cast... then to be followed by a sand mold... and finally to a cast in bronze. This may be a long run-on sentence but it also feels like that in the process as well. It keeps going on and on and on. Casting a piece basically has not change since its historical inception. They have new rubber mold materials and some slight modifications, but basically, like scupture itself, we are still doing the same process as you see in the ancient china exhibits ar your local museum. One curious point though is that I always try to add something that needs to be found by a careful eye. On the humpback there are random nodules (bumps) on its jaw and top of its head. What I decide to do is organize them into braille which looks random but is actually saying something. Now someone running their hands over the whale with braille knowledge will have an unexpected surprise.
Sculpture
