Randall's Urban Architectural Sculptures

With spring and summers typically busy with casting and shipping, and fall-winter being busy with making moldels and molds usually, I’ve seriously neglected keeping up with updating my web store, as well as generating the monthly newsletter. It’s easy to let that kind of maintenance task slip by and weeks turn into months.

But since several clients have recently ordered from pages that I see need obvious updating, I have started going through each page and coding in what’s needed to allow for ordering the concrete versions, and to firmly display which designs can be obtained in concrete and which cannot.

The issue with concrete is a technical one, some designs simply don’t work in concrete due to fragility and access to the inside of the mold.
Concrete works best on plain, low relief and rounded designs, those having deep relief, thin projections, sharp corners and the like don’t work as well.

As I go through each page, a few of the prices will increase, some of the shipping costs displayed will increase as well, and each page will say for certain whether the design is available in concrete or not.

Up till now people have had to inquire and then I’ve had to look at which design they were asking about and tell them yes or no. With other clients who have already paid I’ve had to email about the 20% price differential and invoice them for that, that’s not an efficient use of my time and it’s hardly the best way to do this.

For those designs that are available in concrete I will add a second button code, shipping and price for that.

For projects such as the large order of 900 pounds that went out last fall on a skid via freight, shipping prices do not apply, so be sure to contact me about a large order of concrete before paying, shipping works differently.

Published on: Jul 31, 2009 @ 15:54

Was such a nice day out I thought I would shoot a photo of this concrete sculpture I applied a new acid stain to as a test. I think this stain looks good and authentic, so I will be using this one mostly.

The owl is available in both interior cast stone and this exterior concrete.

The page where the owl center and the complete assembly for the 3 piece frieze panel is here;

http://www.urbansculptures.com/store/owl.php

This particular cast was left over from a client’s project that required 8 of these for installing one per pier in a garden fence-wall.
Because concrete can take 2-3 weeks to complete, I always cast an extra for such projects just in cast one gets damaged in shipping or handling on the job site. as a result I have a number of concrete casts sitting around waiting for new homes.

Offhand I can think of a 294-G lady keystone in regular grey concrete and a large cornice lion in the white concrete I formerly used but which is no longer available.
The idea behind the white concrete was that stains and colorants look brighter and more vivid, but with my work I want aged and dirty so the grey works fine.

Eventually, I believe concrete will be mostly if not completely phased out in favor of kiln fired terra cotta. I am looking at a large oval shaped Olympic kiln which is a good size and would handle the size ware I would be loading into it, including panels and keystones in the sizes I have been working in.

The model I am looking at is very nice, good quality and should last many years, it’s priced around $2,200 plus freight if I go with that size, around $3,000 for a larger model. I already have the corner cleared for it’s location, needing now to run a conduit to the area and put in a 220 volt 60 amp line to run it, and a vent hood;

The kiln fired terra cotta will be a new line of sculptures which will be top of the line hand finished works made like the salvaged pieces were. These would need to be individually hand finished as ceramic piece molds simply can’t provide all of the deep detail, projections and undercuts desired.

All of the old pieces were made in such molds and then hand finished one by one to both bring out the detail, and deepen undercuts and raise projecting portions. A competent sculptor was probably able to finish and detail those pieces in a few minutes, it was to their advantage since they were paid by the piece in the 1890′s.

Once finished the still moist sculptures had to be dried, in those days they used steam to get the production, I don’t plan to do that, they will air dry.

The prices on the salvaged pieces is now high enough the salvage places are rapidly pricing themselves out of the market. It’s to the point where I can easily create a most any of my keystones or panels in clay, fire it and sell it for less than the salvaged/damaged pieces are going for.

Published on: Jul 31, 2009 @ 14:53

I thought I would snap a macro photo of this old metal lion, I found this laying in the dirt by a large tree just West of the arch in Washington Square park around 1975 so I know it’s at least that old. It looked old even then and was crusted with dirt.

It appears to have been a woman’s bracelet charm and could be silver but likely isnt.

A concrete cast of the Athena 2111-L keystone is shown above with an acid stain and Thompson’s water seal.

This cast is going to a California client and will be installed over the door of her home and looks like an old salvaged sculpture due to the stain.

Shortly with a signed contract in hand, I will be working on a custom commission for a Sullivanesque styled panel for a client in Chicago similar to this fragment of a salvaged frieze;

The panel was to originally have a double of this design, but it was decided to make it a square panel design instead, and supply three casts to be built into the brick wall at the residence.

With the materials on hand and some of the measurements provided, I am awaiting one more critical measurement before starting the model itself.

Top view of the sculpture showing the original incised setting numbers, the “B” designated this was to be installed on the second floor of the facade.

This is exactly what I asked for of the UPS Store in East hampton when I bought this artifact from an antique store and they brought it in there for pack-ship.
Unlike a store in Philly, this one double boxed as requested, and used LOTS of packing and rigid foam board.
As a result, the sculpture in this 83# box arrived in perfect condition.

This store did everything right!

I would definitely recommend anyone needing to ship UPS who is near East hampton NY, zip ; 11937 to go to this store for their pack and ship service. It would be going out of your way a bit to use this one even if you have to drive a bit and another UPS store is nearer to you.