Through a glass darkly...here's a spooky looking scene...

Cut up bits and pieces embedded in mold material, waiting to be cut out so waxes can be made.

You might recognize the snail from one of my shoe horns, and of course a tree frog which I'm making as a stand alone wall mounted frog.

That isn't Rumplestiltskin in the background spinning straw into gold, it's Lee flattening the bottoms of my Bumper to Bumper mid size turtles.
Somehow he manages to keep his fingers off that fast spinning abrasive disk (I'm very glad to say).

Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

What are these spooky structures in the hills of Santa Fe? And a new contest next week...

Next post will be my 100th blog post so I'll give away a couple of mice in a contest I'll announce then.
There will be two ways to win. One mouse for winning the contest, another mouse for mentioning the contest (with a link) on your blog, so stay tuned, especially if you (or a friend) also have a blog...

OK, back to this week.
Meridee went hiking up near the Santa Fe ski hill with her friend and author Elizabeth Gilchrist.
They went a bit off the beaten track and encountered some strange structures. Each was made of many tree trunks assembled teepee style around a living tree. They look like they took some serious effort to make, and they kept finding more, ever larger ones the further into the woods they went.

They got a bit spooked and turned and left!

I went back there with Meridee for a look, and snapped a few pics. They really are a bit of a head scratcher.

As you can see they're quite large, completely impenetrable except for a doorway, have bits of chopped off log to sit on inside, and there's several of them.

After a few beers we decided we'd probably head back there on the summer solstice and see if there's any curious shenanigans going on, since our imaginations got the better of us while we wondered what they might all be about!

Any ideas? I'd love to hear them!

Sculpture news!
Here's Lee Wilson's mold making handiwork in progress for my tree frogs on a vine sculpture.
Hopefully we'll have that piece all finished up and photographed in a couple of months.
His artful molds look like abstract sculptures.

I've been working on a couple of other things, one of which will combine some elements I haven't seen done before.
Which probably means every one has done it, but I just haven't noticed!

I'm being a bit coy about it until it's further along, but I showed some of the elements to Lee who will be making my mold, pulling waxes, and what have you.

Here's Lee in 'action'.

I enjoy running things by him since he can suggest practical considerations to make them more efficiently.
If they can be done without infringing on the integrity of my idea, I'll go for it.
In this case, he suggested slightly thickening the sides of a rectangular part to ensure the bronze will flow more freely and create fewer failed castings, which I took care of.

With many years of experience in all aspects of the casting process, he is a great source of 'insider knowledge', and I like take advantage of it whenever I can!

OK, what's the mystery critter in this pic? I snapped it at a nearby gardening nursery that has a pond...
(by the way, this is not the contest, that's next week!)

So don't forget to stay tuned for next weekend's contest announcement...


Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

My show last night at Manitou here in Santa Fe was a blast!

I had a blast last night at the reception for my sculpture show. It had been written up in Western Art Collector magazine , publicized by the gallery and me, and happily we were rewarded with a great turnout of strangers, neighbors and friends who all seemed to be having as good a time as me.

I got a real kick out of being present to answer questions from buyers who were thrilled with their purchases, which made me happier than ever.

Gigi bought a mid size bumper to bumper, and wanted to know how it was made. I cheerfully explained as much as I could, but of course suggested she find out more by searching for 'bumper to bumper' on this blog, since I’ve given detailed photo enhanced ‘how to’s’ on that piece in various sizes!
She’s off home again today after enjoying a re-union with friends.

They all seemed to like my suggestion of naming each one of the turtles after the re-united buddies!

Gerry from across the street added a Nosey mouse to her collection.

Bob and Aggie, who star in this video on YouTube (perfect for very tiny tots, it will DRIVE YOU NUTS if you aren't 3!) brought along some friends.

Thanks again for letting me invade your house with my video camera!

Familiar faces from my blog came along:

Mike Masse, Santa Fe’s patina king.

Lee Wilson, as good a mold maker as you’ll ever find.

Frank Fritzges, without who’s casting skills I wouldn’t have made much of a start at all into the miniature end of the world of bronzes.

I was delighted to run into many others, a few of which I’ll mention here…

Peter Wright, glass artist and bronze publisher . He’s been responsible for publishing many of my larger in physical size, smaller in edition size pieces. In fact I just got news (while writing this) that someone just snapped up one of those pieces, a turtle !

Michael Tatom, a jeweler and sculptor who I first met during Sculpture In The Park, at Loveland, CO.

Vince Maggiore, who did the patinas on my first bronzes, the life sized rabbits, while he was working at Shidoni foundry.

Michelle Chrisman, who paints regularly with Meridee came all the way from Taos with Phil (and then had to drive all the way back again to let the dogs out!).

Juanita who works at Nedra Matteucci’s gallery, and turned a blind eye over the release of my turtle who modeled for me, into the splendid pond they have in their sculpture garden. He’s doing very well, by the way, and is getting quite large now (but not nearly as big as the other turtles there).

Elizabeth who knew Meridee in a former existence, and Kent . They are a pair of authors who've had some very notable successes.

Lots more folks besides, I really appreciate your coming.
Thanks to everyone at Manitou , and of course an extra big thanks to Meridee.
I’ve bent her ears more than most people could ever stand to hear about all things clay and bronze!

I should do this more often!

(did I forget to thank the academy?)

It’s nice to feel like a star for a night!


SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
My Etsy store, CritterVille.

The tree frog has landed...

One small step for a tree frog,
One giant leap for tree frog-kind.
(I've not actually had any real tree frogs confirm that last part)

Anyhow, I've got my first two tree frog sculptures finished.
Over at Mike's secret patina cave we tried a few things. Like some greens in various hues, but ended up liking a transparent golden-ish bronze with dark blotchy rings best.



The blotchiness is very similar to the markings on my real tree frog as he might be seen in a gigantic version sitting on the earth and viewed from space.

Unfortunately a tree frog's place on our planet is a bit precarious these days.

So now I know I'll have tree frogs in my show at Manitou Galleries on Nov 6, thanks to Madd Castings turning the raw metal around so fast, Lee's speedy mold making and wax work, and Mike's splendid metal finishing and artful patina work.

I'm sure I must have had something to do with making them too, but it seems so long ago I can hardly remember!

I took a few pics of one over at Meridee's favorite garden center.



I've got more frogs up my sleeve I'm itching to get going on, but first things first.
Will I get my new turtle pieces finished in time for the show?

Oh, speaking of shows, I'm honored to have some mice and tiny bunnies in Albuquerque museum's miniatures and more show which kicks off next Saturday (Oct 24).
Not sure if Saturday is open to the public or pre-arranged somehow.

My website, SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
My Etsy store, CritterVille.

How a hole in the head sometimes helps, and how to avoid one when it doesn't...

I picked up a bunch of my castings from the foundry folks on Saturday to hand over to Lee when he gets back from his marathon mold making session in Colorado.

They raved enthusiastically about Lee's mold making, by the way.

But back to casting issues. When you cast pieces hollow you can run into a bit of a problem, depending on the shape.

This might get a bit confusing to follow! My attempts at describing it are far from perfect!

Once you have your thin wax (like half of one of those hollow easter eggs), you have to coat both the inside and outside in hard ceramic shell. To do this you dip it into a slurry, let it dry, and repeat several times, over several days.
Trouble is, if you imagine filling a cup made of chocolate by gripping the rim and dipping it into batter bottom first, it fills up and is so heavy to lift out that things can break.
Or at best, the slurry is so far down inside a long skinny cup that no air gets to it to dry it out.
It would be easier if the cup had a hole in the bottom. Which is usually about where anything's head would be.
With a hole in the bottom, our cup would fill up from the bottom (coating the inside and outside simultaneously) and drain when you pull it back out.

So as you can see with the toad, you remove a 'window' to let the slurry run out, so it can thinly coat both the inside and the outside of the wax (which of course later is melted out and bronze poured into the empty void).

Then the window piece (like a piece removed from the bottom of a cup) is cast separately and welded back in and the join cleaned up later.
Well with my turtle and tree frogs I didn't want any windows cut out and welded back in, but they were still going to be cast hollow.

So instead, once you have your hollow wax sculpture, you push some bronze pins through it.
You dip the wax into the slurry (like pushing a cup bottom first into some batter), but don't let it spill over the edge to the inside.
The inside is dealt with separately.

It is completely filled with a plaster type material that dries more easily. The plaster stuff is held in place by the pins (which are also held by the ceramic shell on the outside), so when the wax is melted out the inner lump of plaster doesn't fall to one side or the other (if it did, you'd have a thick bronze on one side, and holes in the other).

Then, when the plaster is set, the wax is melted out and the bronze is poured into the space that the wax left behind, the resulting bronze critter, once the ceramic shell on the outside, and the plastery stuff on the inside is removed, appears to have pins pushed into it (and you can see them inside too).

But no holes in their heads to mess about with later.
Just a couple of pins to grind off and smooth over.

Interestingly I was introduced to the 'hole in the head' in shot form during my years in Hong Kong.
Martyn, who was tending bars at the time (just about everyone did a stint behind the bar at one point or other) showed me a layered drink in a shot glass. It was three layers, one of Sambuka and one of Vodka, with a lethal red line of tabasco in between.

Downed in one and called a 'hole in the head', it was designed to make your eyes water!

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Race against the clock...getting new stuff cast in time for my first gallery show!

Manitou Galleries in Santa Fe are having a show for me on Nov 6.
Every month or so they team up a sculptor with a painter and have 2 person shows.

It's my first gallery show, so technically everything in it will be new work (since there's no 'last time' to compare it to).
But since my stuff has been in the gallery for a while I'm hoping to get a few new pieces finished in time.
If I had been a bit more on the ball they'd be further along the production process by now, but I'm nearly finished sculpting the last of the new bits.
Tomorrow I should finish a small 4.5" long turtle (bigger than my very tiny, and tiny turtles).
I have just finished sculpting the parts for a mid size bumper to bumper turtle sculpture perhaps about 18" long (my tiny one is 9", my large one is 40" long).
Since there will be wine served, I made a couple of bottle stoppers (turtle and rabbit).
The pink parts are waxes made from molds of my existing sculptures, which I am adapting to make bottle stoppers before Lee makes new molds on them.
And of course I just finished making a couple of tree frogs.

I'm lucky to be working with Lee Wilson, arguably one of the finest mold makers in the country, and he lives just round the corner.
He speedily punched out a bunch of waxes of my newly sculpted turtle shell so I could get busy as a mad wizard sinking them into the griddle to make my swimming turtles.

Here I've sat one of the turtles from my miniature bumper to bumper, and also one of my new size ones on the large base for an idea of scale.
Lee's helping me out by making molds, waxes, and doing metal finishing when the castings come back from the foundry.

Here's a couple of tree frogs Lee's currently making molds on. I'm sure I'll make a lot more, but for now I'm hoping to get these 2 produced in time.

It might seem that a couple of months is plenty of time, but everything has to be molded, waxes have to be made from the molds, they have to be sent to the foundry, invested in ceramic shell, cast in bronze, returned to Santa Fe, and metalworked before having patinas applied, and in the case of the mid size bumper to bumper, assembled on granite bases.
Actually they have to be delivered near the end of October to the gallery for them to work out the display. So less than 2 months.

Not sure it will happen in time, but I've got the best man for the job on my side (although sadly he's stuck with me, not exactly giving him bags of time to play with)!

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My new butterfly salad toad sculpture is finished.

I suppose a butterfly is the equivalent of a cobb salad if you're a toad.
Meaty bit and flimsy bits all on the same plate.

Since my earlier post showing the original sculpture in April, Lee Wilson has made a mold of it, waxes have been pulled from the mold and been cast in bronze, metal work has been done, and then a traditional patina applied in the usual way (heat, spray on chemicals, and brush on paste wax while it's still hot).

Lee tried a little experiment during the molding process. The normal method for hollow sculpture is to paint hot liquid wax into the mold one layer at a time. But since he got his new toy, a wax injector (for doing smaller, solid pieces) he thought he'd try and fit a second mold portion from beneath so he could squirt wax in under pressure and make the wax in a minute instead of half an hour.
After experimenting with different temperatures and adjusting the second part of the mold, he decided he couldn't do it (the waxes were coming out with missing bits), so it was back to doing it the old fashioned way.
No harm in trying though. Here's the freshly cast bronze before metalwork and patina.And below it's finished and sitting next to a can for scale.
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