Primavera al Mare
So – today is spring at sea – which comes a whole month before spring on land. We had a lovely sunny day today, so it was almost feeling spring like – and as I got another text from home telling me it was snowing, I definitely was glad to be in Italy!
Preparing ceramic shells for a bronze pour
On Saturday morning when I was loitering in the yard looking at lots of bronzes that had just been sand blasted, one of the foundry guys beckoned me over to asked me if I wanted to see them loading the ceramic shells into the kiln. “Si Grazie…”
They have a large trolley on rails that was loaded with about 4 large shells and lots of smaller ones packed around them. I was surprised that the large shells were the right way up, as I’d assumed they would be fired upside down to let the wax out. However, they explained that they had made holes in the ceramic shell to let the wax out. The smaller ones were all upside down.
They then raised vertically the large door of the kiln and I felt a blast of heat from the inside of the kiln which was already at around 650°C. The trolley was moved into the kiln and the big door came back down with a large metal drain pipe poking out stil. Within a couple of minutes the wax started pouring out of this and was caught in a very large saucepan which had to be emptied regularly.
They explained that the kiln would be kept at 650 till all the wax had melted, then it would be taken up to 900 for about 6 hours to fire the ceramic shells and then cooled slowly over the weekend. I should come back on monday morning and they would show me the rest of the process.
So about 8 am on Monday I returned, this time with camera in tow to watch the next stages. They were going to cast a large piece of the fountain they are currently working on. As it was so large they wouldn’t be doing anything else with it. First of Enzo was having to fill each of the holes that had been made to let the wax escape – this was done with a dab of ceramic liquid and a little chuck of ceramic powder – followed by a quick flame throw to ‘fire’ it. For the large fountain – this took around 1 1/2 hours!
Meanwhile, Maurizio was getting the bronze weighed out and ready for the furnace, as well as the large container that the shell will sit in. This is lowered into a hole in the ground to make the pour easier. They waited until Enzo had nearly finished patching all the holes in the shell before lighting the furnace – they wouldn’t want to have to keep the bronze at full melt temperature for any length of time. The furnace was loaded up with off cuts of bronze from previous cast’s runners and risers, and eventually some ingots too.
When the shell was finally patched, it was hoisted up, and lowered carefully into the large container, which had disks of felt positioned under where the steel legs of the framework came. These legs also had rectangular pieces of rubber attached to them.
The container was then filled with sand from 2 large drums. I was then hoist out of the hole, and had a machine attached to it to vibrate it so that all the sand was well compacted.
The container was returned to its hole in the ground, and the top was sealed with a sheet of plastic before the vacuum pump was attached to put the whole container under negative pressure. More sand was then placed over the sheet, presumably to protect it from melting/burning from bronze splashes.
The shell was finally ready for the pour. All that was needed was for the bronze to get to the right temperature and for all the required people to arrive.
Donna Scultura (Women Sculpture)
This morning I went to the opening of the women’s scultpture show – an annual show they have of 4 prominent female sculptors working in Pietrasanta now in its 8th year – which they always schedule to open on Valentines day!
It started at 10.30 am – with a series of talks in the lecture hall off the cloister (this was also used last sunday for the Knut Steen award ceremony which I haven’t had a chance to blog about yet).
As I arrived I met Shelley Robzen (http://www.shelleyrobzen.com/) who I had lunch with on my first day here and who I’m trying to meet up with again, and Immanuel Klein (http://www.immanuelklein.com/) who was here on the marble carving residency before christmas but is back here for a while longer. We sat in the second row and ended up beside Hakon Anton.
My italian is getting better as I could get the general jist of all they were say (it was all in italian) – although I wasn’t always sure who people were.
The artist were:
Elena Biancini
Who does interesting figures in fired clay, and a piece I particularly liked of an egg hanging in the centre of a pyramid (appesa a un filo). She didn’t want to say anything, and I can’t find her online either.
Editt Davidovici
Of Romanian origin, she showed a slideshow of personal photos starting from childhood, including amazing snow sculpture in Canada and ending with a poignant photo of her son who recently died in a flying accident whilst training to be a pilot.
She works in marble and I thought her most powerful piece was called ‘fallen angel’ and was dedicated to her son. It was like a wing and head of a bird or gull with an amazing line and curve – and had a tear of polished marble about where the birds eye would be. However, I did think that the tear spoilt it slightly – it was just a bit too cliched and unsubtle in a very subtle piece. I wonder if she could have kept it but tonned it down a bit, or maybe it wasn’t necessary.
Jaya Schuerch
She spoke of the amazing experience she has when she first arrived in Pietrasanta in the 80s and learned in various marble studios from old craftsmen who had been carving since the age of 14… Sadly a lot of these studios are closing down or moving out of town, as their son’s don’t want to face such a hard life and the price of real estate in central pietrasanta rockets.
After having moved studios a number of times, her need to have a stable and ‘bello’ place to work, drove her to set up a studio where artist and artigiani can work: Studio Pescarella http://www.studiopescarella.com/
(This is just outside Pietrasanta and I’m hoping to go visit it soon)
Later in the actual exhibition I talked to Jaya – which was very interesting. Amongst other things, she encouraged me to invest in hiring a professional photographer to take shots of my works – if you can’t send the work, its great to send good photos, and its very important to have good quality catalogues…
I’d told here that I had only been here 2 weeks and how my head was a bit really from trying to take it all in, (I feel like a sponge). She said that I’d probably start crying a lot in another couple of weeks – most people do – or rather the women tend to cry a lot and the men take to drinking too much!
Virginia Tentindo
(I couldn’t find a site of her work but this give a good overview) http://gumucio.blogspot.com/2009/11/el-erotismo-de-virginia.html
Of argentinian italian origin, her work seem very influenced by past latin american civilasations – with strange hybrid creatures and weird erotic scenes. (The little boy next to us exclaimed ‘bruto’ and ‘monstro’ – its ugly, a monster!) . She has a studio in the Bateaux Lavoir in Monmartre in Paris (where Picasso worked)
She showed a film of her work and studio with a voice over text by Julio Cortazar (Argentinian novelist). Unfortunately they didn’t have the sound connected up to the PA system, but as I was only a few seats from the laptop I managed to catch some of it.
Igor Mitoraj appeared at the exhibition to see Virginia.
After the talks, we all gathered on the steps of the church (Chiesa di S. Agostino) and the doors were opened dramatically – such different traditions to the UK.
La Fusione
Here are some shots of a bronze ‘pour’ – or as they say here (far more exciting) ‘La Fusione’.
I took these shots earlier today. They were doing 2 large pieces that were buried in sand, and then a lot of small pieces, that were taken out of the kiln just as the bronze was taken out of the furnace.
They had told me in the wax room to come down to watch this pour, as it was a very beautiful one – when the bronze goes in the small ceramics, you can often see it coming out of the holes.
“Gli Artegiani” at work
I have also been learning lots of techniques from the foundry guys – some hard to explain, but highlights are:
– use of heated sand-paper dipped in ‘petrolio’ to smooth the wax
– how to use heated rasps on the wax
– making wax plates / boards on marble slabs – 4 batons of wood measure out the space, then the slab and batons are oiled and the molten wax poured at a steady pace into the space
– soldering wax together (very similar to metal techniques) – using a hot tool and a bit of wax shaped into a rod
– how to use small pins to strengthen small soldered joins (heat and insert cut end of pin first, then use pin end to insert into the other half of join)
– moving over the large extractor fan when making lots of smoke (large soldering and using large heated tools)
– how to pour the molten brown wax into cool water, then with oil on your hands kneed into a ball of very maleable wax – they do this with the hard brown wax to build up barrier walls on moulds. It can almost be used like clay
– using a wonderful old metal syringe to inject molten wax into a small mould (although I haven’t been alowed to wield the syringe that I’m coveting!)
and probably many others that are already becoming second nature!
Briony Marshall is a London based sculptor and installation artist. With a background in Biochemistry she is interested in the idea of art practice as research. She fuses an intellectual/conceptual approach with an intuitive, materials inspired process to develop sculptures that investigate the natural world and man’s place in it. In 2012 she completed the Pangolin London Sculpture Residency which culminated in a solo show at Pangolin London in May 2013. She became a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors in 2008 and has recently been elected a member of its Council. She is head of Professional Development at The Art Academy and was recently named as one of the ‘175 Face of Chemistry’ to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2015 she was shortlisted as one of the five finalist for the First@108 Public Art Award.
