Pietrasanta Bronze Casting Residency 2010

2 days left!

All a bit exhausted and emotional… Took my mother and son to the airport today, and when I got back to the flat this evening it seemed so wrong that they won’t be back. I’ve been terribly selfish a lot of the time and taken total advantage of my mothers nurturing nature, but I’ve enjoyed our 3 months living our simple lifestyle together. I went to put radio4 on the iplayer and had no-one to ask what to put on. And all the other residents of the apartments say it won’t be the same without my 2 1/2-year-olds cheery ‘hello’ as he run’s around the courtyard and garden.

Boy, does it take a long time to get something cast in bronze! I finished my enlargement in clay before easter, and we’ve been rushing it through all the stages, but it very nearly wasn’t done in time this week:

Wed 31st March – finished the clay

Thursd 1st april – Lorenzo formatory, drives my piece to his studio, and does the first coat of rubber

Fri 2nd april – second coat rubber

Tuesday 6th – Plaster jacket

Wed 7th – long story day missed

Thursd 8th – opened, cleaned, taken to foundry

Friday 9th – cleaned again, prepared and cast in wax

Monday 12th – finished casting in wax, opened up hollow and started touching up inside

Tues 13 & Wed 14 – me touching up wax and sculpting inside of work

Thursday 15 – first thing in morning – we put the beak of the bird back on, and put wax in queue to wait for its sprues to be done. Alfredo did the sprues in the afternoon

Friday 16th April – in the morning I touch up the wax post sprues going on (the metal bars that were used to hold it in place had left holes that needed filling) Then it was waiting in the queue for the ceramic shell to be done.

Sometime the next week, I think on the tuesday, I started getting worried and talked to Raymondo about whether it will be done so that I can touch up the metal before I go, not for the first time, but I think he then talked to someone, so it jumped the queue

Wednesday 21st April – the difficult hollows that are virtually enclosed have ceramic added first, then the wax is touched up again, and the red pins are added which will be where the air and bronze escapes during the pour

Thursd 22nd – ceramic shell layers start, and it dries in the cupboard between layers.

Sat 24th, I have a chat with Nicola about whether it will be finished in time, we go look at in the cupboard still drying, with more layers on. He says he’s not sure if it will be ready to be poured by wednesday or not (eek)

Monday 26th – I pop into the ‘fusione’ room, and my pieces are sitting there, looking like they are done in the ceramic. I ask Enzo when they will be poured: “not sure, maybe friday” was the response I got. *gulp* – why can’t they be done sooner, I ask, explaining about the fact that I’m leaving and want to finish and patina them before I leave. And also that I wanted to show it on thursday evening when I have my little “thankyou, leaving party and show of my work” Festa.

They were going to wait for other ceramic shells to be ready too, as it will be poured ‘hot’ and normally they do a whole crucible of small ceramic shells at once. I start feeling very guilty as I realise how out of the ordinary and annyoing it would be if they do mine straight away. But I do mention that Ivan had rushed the ceramic shells through on their own for me…

I find it very hard to understand Enzo. He wears ear plugs so he tends to talk really softly (worried about shouting maybe?) and the radio’s on loud, so I wasn’t quite sure what he’d said. I saw Nicola as I headed upstairs and explained situation, very gratefully asking if anything could be done.

Tuesday 27th – my shell is fired and wax melted out

Wed 28th (Today!) – it was poured just before lunch, chipped out and sand blasted by 5pm

tomorrow I do the chasing!

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Yves Dana – and my catalogue reading

I know I’ve mentioned him before, but today in my ‘pausa cataloga’ (not sure if that is good italian) I read a beautiful book of his sculptures from cover to cover. It felt like falling in love, so exciting and enjoyable, I just wanted to suck it all up…

So, at least once a day I try to spend somewhere between 15 and 30 mins looking or reading the catalogues in the foundry office (today I just got sucked in and it was an hour, oops). I started this about a week ago, but should have done it when I arrived as there are so many I don’t have a hope of getting through them all before I leave. Its nice as it has the added benefit of getting to know the folks in the office better.

The last few days I’ve been reading Helaine’s ‘mythology’ catalogue which is amazing and really useful. Yesterday I read how she was influenced by a writer to who said it should be possible to create a work in a sitting, to work intensely on her models till they were done, and then do very little changes in the process of translation and enlargement.

This was great and timely advice, as I’m currently working on my third piece, and having tried to work it out in a few small maquettes (I think I was working too small and it didn’t really help) I decided to launch into the piece as I am creating a surface related to a group of figures in the geometry of a pyruvate molecule. I initially thought I was maybe missing something by working too fast, and nearly getting it in the first sitting. But following that reading, I’ve decided to try to get it as fast as possible so I don’t go astray or lose it.

Reading Dana today was also useful. His response to his materials – he initially worked in iron, then moved to stone, now also works in plaster for casting in bronze – he is inspired and challenged by the hard materials. I was also intersted that he works on his pieces directly without doing maquettes.

Another thing I noticed was how prolific he was at the start of his career when he was doing his iron works – around 14 works a year, which is more than 1 a month. This has given me the resolve that when I return I really need to set myself a similar aim for the next year. I think I need to get lots of works done as you learn so much from each one. And the size I’ve been working now is fine – 40 – 80cm or so… large enough to challenge but small enough to get done and push to its limit and fully resolve in the timeframe.

So, feeling in a transition phase but in a good way – sucking up the last of what I can from Pietrasanta, whilst beginning to look to the new chapter that will open when I get home.

Meanwhile the doom of the ash cloud seems to be chiming with the work I’m developing!

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Pietrasanta’s at last getting warmer – and opening up like a flower…

And with the warm sunny weather its is filling up, foreign artists are arriving, and the ones that are here all year, seem to have come out of hibernation in their studios.

Friday night’s drink in the piazza after work, turned into 8 of us going for a nice dinner, and ended up with 4 of us drinking take away limoncellos or cafes (in expresso size polystyrene cups with lids!) on the steps of the duomo, with one of my party playing the piano accordion. I felt like I was in a film…

Nearing the end

But I only have 2 weeks left, so I feel like I need to make the most of every opportunity and experience. Part of me is also now looking forward to being home, in my own place with my family, and to starting a new creative phase in my own studio.

But I’m also very busy trying to finish my 3rd piece. Today I started in earnest putting the figures into a framework. On Helaines suggestion I had worked on some small maquettes, but in the end decided that the piece isn’t that big, and the structure is so dependant on its interaction with the molecular figures that I just had to launch in to the piece and work it out in that.

I’ve been using pastellos of the hard brown wax. I love making the pastello, and I’m getting quite good and quick at it. I dip my hands in a bit of oil, then pour a laddel of molten brown wax into the basin of cold water. I then start needing the wax together first in the water then soon out of it. There is something so sensual and pleasing of needing the warm wax in my hands.

I’ve had a bit of help from Angelo to construct a framework, but mostly I’ve done it on my own, as the foundry was very busy, with at least 3 artist in either inspecting work, or working on things, and Angelo was running from one to the other with his usual calm – however now that I know him a bit, I could tell that under the calm exterior he was a little hassled by all the different directions he was being pulled in.

I’m excited by the piece, and was gutted when I realised it was already 12 and lunch break. Anyway, back at the flat for a quick lunch, then I can continue with the piece. I’m trying to work intuitively but whilst keeping in mind the ideas and feelings I’m hoping to express.

My mother and son are just back in now, so I’ll stop here.

Casting in wax continued:

So, last night in my blog I had got to the point where the mould had been closed, and Mauro had filled a pan of hot molten wax.

He and Carlo then poured the big saucepan of wax into the closed mould, and then the magic of ‘how long to leave it’ took place.

Some of the techniques of casting are fairly easy to learn, most are possible to learn but take a while and will need practice, but there are other techniques that seem like the dark arts and continue to be a mystery to me. The trick of how long to leave the wax in the mould so you get the right thickness seems just one of these.

They know the mould, they know what the weather is like, they know how hot the wax was when it went in, and they do this thing of scooping off the skin from the top of the wax look at the thickness of the walls as it develops.

After a few short minutes, its ready, and the wax gets poured out back into the same pan. Then its filled with cold water to be left for an hour or so to cool and harden fully.

In the meantime, I cast the ‘beak’ bit of my piece which had been moulded separately. It was a lot smaller, but I did it all so much faster, as I now knew how, and was proud that I barely had to ask Mauro much advice.

It was about an hour later when that was done, so we then opened the main bit of the sculpture – it was like being a small child opening a christmas present… and great to see my piece in the lovely dark black wax.

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Only 3 weeks to go!

Slight panic and a desire to spend 24 hours a day in the foundry have set in, as I realise that I only have 3 more weeks till the end of my residency.

However, I think it will be ok, although it is hard to tell how long something will take when you’ve never done it before.

I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog in the last week and a half as I had a little break for the easter weekend, then had a busy week last week, with a visit from the representative of the foundation funding me, as well as my husband.

However, on the work front, I’ve finished the mould of my clay sculpture and I’ve spent the last 2 days in the foundry casting it, so here are details of the process and some shots.

Casting in Wax:

I started casting on friday but having spent some time with Angelo learning how to make modeling wax, I only got as far as cleaning out my mold and preparing it before it was lunch time.

I cleaned it with a small metal tool, and the compressed air. Then to prepare it, I gave it:

– a layer of oil on the rubber (with a brush)

– a layer of grease on the plaster (only the bits that will come together, not the back)

After lunch I started layering up the wax. I took a small saucepan of the black ‘painting wax’ and heated it further on the gas rink, but without letting it boil.

Then I started painting it into the mould. It was actually harder than I thought it would be. It was important to go straight from the pan to the mould with good hot wax, and dabbing quickly a thin layer of wax. I had to reheat the wax every 5 minutes to keep it very runny.When I had a full coat of think, I then went over the whole surface again a bit more thickly to ensure there were no bits where the white of the mold showed through the thin wax.

Then a third layer was added of swirls to key the surface well – the trick was to make the wax look a bit cloudy/opaque/purple.

I then needed to reinforce the peaks inside the mould. If you don’t do this then these bit would end up with thinner wax, and then might not come out in the bronze.

To do this, I needed to prepare the ‘pastello’ – a warm soft brown wax that can be used almost like clay, but becomes very had when cooled. I had already learnt to do this before. I poured a ladle of the molten brown wax into a bowl of cold water, then with a bit of oil on my hands I needed the wax into a ball, quickly taking it out of the bowl, and needing it throughly so that it is all soft and mouldable.

Slowly I added spines to all the bits of the mould that created ridges, and small blobs on any little points.

The mould was then ready to be closed. They do this with neat little u-shaped bits of metal that you hammer on to the plaster edges to hold it together.

Mauro then lifted the mould using the gantry crane, and rested it on a low support, propping it to ensure the hole in the base was level.

I again made some more ‘pastello’ and made a 5 cm wall round the top, and a spout to make it easier for them to empty it.

It was then ready to have the wax poured in, but as I am out of space and its now late, I will continue this in another post tomorrow.

Weather

On friday when I was doing all the above (up until closing the mould), it was boiling in the casting wax room – it was 26.8°C! On saturday I got my flip-flops out for the first time, and it was lovely sitting in the main square having lunch – it felt like english summer.

However, Sunday morning we were woken to the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard, that went on for about 20 minutes, with a huge downpour and wind.

It cleared up later and was even sunny, but I’ve got back into my thermals as it is really quite chilly again!

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