Architectural Sculptures

Now I found some time to start the mold for this panel, hopefully I will finish it tomorrow, but I did get a late start on the first application of silicone mold rubber, and it takes about 6 applications total, each an hour or so apart to build up sufficient thickness. Then it cures in about 6 hours, or in this case, over night before the plaster supporting shell can be made.

Here’s the origial clay model laid flat on a board with the first “detail coat” carefully applied, very thinly over the whole surface to eliminate as much air bubbles as possible when it’s brushed on.
Subsequent applications have a thickener added so it’s more of a mayonaise consistancy and will stay put on vertical surfaces as well as build up thickness rapidly.
Without the thickener the material is more like honey, wanting to flow in a slow and sticky way to seek a level like water does.
The final measurements of the panel is about 17″ x 21, meaning the original clay as it was has shrunk about one inch in width and about 1-3/4 inches in length.
All clay shrinks as it dries, and this is about 6% shrinkage, so in order to gain a specific size that has to be allowed for in the original design.
This also shows how damaged or missing terra cotta components on buildings being restored cannot simply be replaced by making a mold off an existing or undamaged element to make replacements- the final casts would wind up about 6% smaller.
The alternative then is concrete “replacements” cheap fiberglass, or having a sculptor sculpt a replacement model about 12% larger if using water clay for the model due to the double shrinking, about 6% if using an oil based clay or other material such as carved and shaped plaster.

A bit of progress on this model today.

I happened to find a couple of articles and, even better still- a couple of photos and line engravings showing the construction phase of the Metropolitan railway co cable car powerplant building I once lived in.
I figured with this highly unusual project there just had to be more articles and photos about the four Corless 1,000 HP steam engines driving a 32 foot diameter sheave (then the largest such powerplant made)
I found them in a couple of issues of Scientific American from 1892 and 1893.
The below scan looks a lot like a photo because it’s quality is so good, but I’ve looked over the original with a magnifying glass and it’s clearly a line engraving and one can tell by examining the men closely, their faces, hands etc have a slight “drawn by pencil” look.
There’s an amazing amount of fine details in this illustration, obviously a very talented artist.
The view would be from inside looking East towards Broadway- the buildings drawn in at the upper part of the background at what would be street level would be those on the East side of Broadway, and on the right side would be Houston street, with the brical wall along the left side in this view being the older existing building to the North, being number 623 Broadway sicne the Cable Building is 611-621.

What I don’t get is, why they used line engravings to illustrate the basement construction, yet used a photograph to illustrate the first cable car run from 50th street, May 1893.
Obviously they had the ability and technology to print photographs so why the use of line engravings? I can’t imagine it was cheaper since it took a lot of labor and time to do these, and photographs certainly were common by 1893 and had been around for at least 30 years.
I also wondered how they made these so detailed, I mean looking at them under a magnifying glass you can see the most insignificant minute details in the background such as a rope hanging off a ladder or something, I can’t imagine a reporter doing a quick sketch of the scene for an article, and then going back to the office and coming up with all of those details from a crude sketch and memory. It’s almost as if they took a photo and then drew the photo as a line engraving for some reason instead of using the actual photo.

I’m pleased to report that this recently completed model now has a “sponsor”, and a mold will be made in about a week for this so the client will be able to receive his cast.

Also, the semi-discontinued lion 3886 may also come back again shortly.

It was never a big seller, so when the mold tore I never replaced it and decided to just shelve replacing it till some later date, because each mold costs an average of $300 for the materials, and most of a day labor to build. For me to spend that money and time on a mold it needs to be for a design that sells, or has at least a couple of interested parties with firm orders at hand. Otherwise the mold just sits around taking up space, and they do have a shelf life for the rubber part of them too.
With a previous client perhaps wanting 3 more now, the mold would be good to replace at this point to cast those.

I forgot I had this saved on my drive from 2008, it’s priceless

It’s a screen capture of a feedback on ebay that was so funny I had to save it.The statue seller was selling these cheap looking plaster statues all spray painted with gold paint and selling for 99 cents up LOL good grief, the time spent selling a 99 cent item, imagine the packing and shipping, the ebay and paypal fees too, just insane!

This fellow bought one of the 99 cent statues and then complained about it being crappy unprofessional junk, seriously! what did he think he was going to get for 99 cents??

Note the poor spelling in the seller’s response, “we undersytand,…” it was clear there too he wasn’t going to even bother with this buyer, and for 99 cents who can blame him really.

I am working on this one next.

Now that the other model is hollowed out and taken off my easel and laid flat on strips of styrofoam to dry out, I’ll be doing this model next, same size as the first.
I like the slight curving effect, as it reinforces the figure’s exerting pressure upward which is causing movement as evidenced by the vertical lines bending outward, and the horizontal upper section being bent upwards. This one will be #D-9

I pretty much finished this model (18×24″) today, except for minor surface cleanup.
For those wondering about the clay I use, this is water based raku clay which I find extremely stable and has absolutely no tendency to warp or crack even in very thick slabs and pieces such as I work with.

This is approximately 2-1/2″ thick, 18×24″ moist, when dried it will probably wind up around 17 x 22-1/2″ or a little smaller. I do not as of yet own a kiln, so these are not fired, but are used for master patterns to take silicone molds from.
For the most part I am able to pull the mold and the greenware model almost always stays nearly intact- leaving open the option to fire it later to keep.
This is the first of a planned 3 panel set.

The one foot and part of the lower leg to it are all that need to be finished now, with the rest of the model only needing some additional refinement and cleaning up which is done as the clay begins to firm up during the drying-out process.

I didn’t do very much on this model today but I did a little bit of refinement of it, the abstractness of this is a bit different to me, and the low relief makes it a little more complicated to get right because the various levels of the surfaces are very subtle and they don’t vary very much, making more use of outlines and angles to delineate the shapes and forms more than any projection.

A little further refinement today on this should be evident.

And today as well

I decided to dig out some model ideas I had stored away in a folder, and as I went through the photos I came upon a couple which I wanted to do a couple of years ago but didn’t pursue. The photos were of the 1927 Chanin building and I decided to look for more information on the building last night.
I learned there are 8 panels in the 2 lobbies, of which I very much liked 3 panels, here is a picture of one of them.

I like what I call the “Atlas” look, or as some articles refer to these as; “hyper-masculine” style of these kinds of figures done in that 1920-1930′s era.

The building cost $14 million in 1927 to construct, and the entire 57 story high skyscraper was erected in just 205 days!

Irwin Chanin was an architect and real estate developer who had visited Paris in 1925, taking in the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. He was so inspired by what he saw, that when he returned that he set out to incorporate these designs in his current projects. Not yet a registered architect, he worked with the firm of Sloan and Robertson to build this building.

The original artist for the works on the building was none other than the sculptor Rene Chambellain- who if eagle-eyed readers may remember from elsewhere on this site- Rene designed the set of 5 historic charter seals of the City of New York for the old West Side (Miller) highway.

Each of the Chanin plaques had a theme-title which depicted the following in an Art Deco, cubist design;

Physical life: “Endurance” “Activity” “Effort” “Success”
Mental life: “Enlightenment” “Vision” “Courage” “Achievement”

Not all of the panels have been associated with their titles that I have found yet, 3 have been, the rest are up for interpretation. That means the design above either represents “Activity” “Effort” or “Success,” and in looking over the photos of the 3 in that set, I get the feeling this panel is the one titled “Success” as the other 2 seem to lean more towards “activity” and “effort”, while this one has a confident stride which suggests some task has been accomplished.

A few articles which mention these panels have said incorrectly they are bronze, actually photos I have seen around show at least one has some cracks in it, broze does not crack that way, they are beyond doubt plaster of paris which has been painted gold, though originally they may have been gilded, the gold may have peeled a little or became dirty, and over the years the lobbies would have been repainted, and I’m certain at that time these panels were painted with gold paint to give them a renewed appearance.

I decided on the size for the panel, which will start out at about 18″ X 24″, which after the clay has shrunk on the master model will probably wind up around 16″ X 21-1/2″ or so, a nice size without being too large or heavy.

More can read about the designs and Mr Chambellain as well;

http://www.louisvilleartdeco.com/feature/RenePaulChambellan/RenePaulChambellan.html

Now that I have the proper sized form to contain the clay, I have about 85# of clay packed in the box, smoothed flat, and ready to begin work.

My set of three Nortown theater Art Deco panels brought about a rather interesting couple of emails since this summer, first one that came was from an architectural salvage dealer Ive purchased about $8,000 worth of pieces from over a few years time, the last one was the very large $5,000 terra cotta eagle that graces my front parlor.
Seems that when I requested they refrain from sending their newsletter to no less than three of my emails (when you buy from THESE people they force you to subscribe to their spammy newsletter by default it seems) My request was met by an odd sort of implied accusation to the effect that I was “knocking off” “their” salvaged panels from this Nortown theater! moreover, it demanded to know if I had ever been to that theater in person!

How would that matter whether I had been to the theater or not??

I saw the photos of these panels and decided I would like to model them, the designs were very easy for me, and they look good.

Long story short, I wrote back that first of all, the designs are antique and the design is in the public domain, secondly, that the photos of the theater I have on display have nothing at all to do with him or his salvage place, and that they came from a flicker account with a “creative commons” free-to-use license granting the rights to use the images with a few restrictions.

Ok, so the guy writes back and says, that’s not what he was referring to! LOL, ok, so now it comes out- get ready for it- he was upset (to put it mildly) that people have been emailing him asking about… and this wasn’t real clear to me… if he had originals to sell, or if I had original panels to sell.

First of all that’s a real curious one for a couple of reasons, one is why would anyone contact this guy asking if I have any originals to sell or if I had been part of the salvaging of them??? You’d think they would contact me directly to ask such questions, especially since nowhere on my site do I ever claim to have salvaged the originals, and moreover- I state on at least one page here that I do not sell original pieces at any time.
Furthermore, my pages on the panels clearly show me modelling the designs from raw clay and explain the story of the theater’s history, and that my works are reduced in size from the original scale for todays’ smaller modern homes.

The other curious thing to me in thinking about that- a smart salesman would use that free contact opportunity to say something like: “I don’t have them any more, BUT I do have X and Y available that you might be interested in.“ So that is a complete fail LOL.

A few months go by and I continue getting these stupid newsletters, by this time I had already decided I wasn’t going to purchase another item from this jerk ever again, so the other night, quite late I sent all three back with a REMOVE in the subject line and a line that I have no interest in ever purchasing anything from this company again.

Not seven minutes later, I get a reply!

So he degenerates into personal insults via email now! then it hit me, and I figured out what this jerk’s game was, he was STILL upset that my version of the panels have been selling nicely since they were created, and that as he put it- he was angry he has to “deal with” people asking him about the original salvaged panels after seeing mine on the web! so his game was- he was going to annoy me with his stupid newsletters in a childish retaliation because:

1) He isn’t smart enough to act like a SALESMAN when someone contacts him about something he doesn’t have.
2) His hilarious insult calling me a “knockoff dude” and a few other nasty remarks I won’t repeat- made me think that a glorified junk salesman as he is doesn’t have the TALENT or skills to create art that people appreciate, and that he has to resort to SELLING other people’s artwork much like a vacuum cleaner salesman has to sell Electrolux vacuums LOL.

So while artist like myself create art with our skills and talents, he has to resort to SELLING used art that has limited availability, hey, maybe I should hire him to be my SALESMAN working on commission or something, since that seems to be the best he can do- sell other people’s art

Anyway, the biggest irony of all is that his nasty-grams motivated me yesterday into aiming my marketing efforts on these specific Nortown theater panels, and last night, just hours after I put back the web page for them (I had it down till after the holidays) I received an inquiry from a possible new client who is interested in perhaps two panels to incorporate into a new Art Deco styled fireplace he is building.

Funny how that worked out, two panels probably sold because of a jerk and his newsletter and email thing

Also, I had an earlier inquiry for three of these panels recently which I turned down at the time because I had all but used up my supply of casting materials, I was hanging on to what I had for casting some small items as I wasn’t planning to order any right now till after the holiday slump.

But I went ahead and ordered a half ton of that and will have plenty on hand.

Still trying to come up with some ideas for a model or some models this month to use up the 1,000# or so of moist clay I have stored in the studio, over the next couple of weeks I will be thinking about some possible designs I want to do to use that up as it has a definite shelf life!