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!
