It is always nice to see new work developing and here is one of two new works which I have been making in the first months of 2021.

First sight of ‘8 Months’ a study, depicting the miracle of procreation.

I’m privileged to use the facility in Richard Clarke’s enlargement studio.

‘8 Months’ in clay, side view.

‘8 Months’ from the front, in clay, in the workshop.

‘8 Months‘ is particularly relevant at the moment as I am about to lose my wonderful PA for about a year, as she is now 5 months pregnant.  Maternity leave is getting near and my life will be in turmoil without my ‘right hand’, who I rely upon so heavily!

This work was originally made by me in wax, but the armature was not strong enough and so I have now made a clay edition.  It will soon be ready for moulding and then will be cast in bronze at the foundry, as a further work to be displayed in my studio in West Ashling, where all the work is for sale.

The Gibran Sculpture Series

  After hours and hours of blood, sweat and tears by a huge number of very skilled craftsmen, here is the final journey and, as you will see, very happy resting place of, Speak to us of Freedom.

The fine art bronze sculpture, Speak to us of Freedom, lying strapped to the floor of the van on a mattress.

The sculpture being carried through the house in Chelsea to the enclosed back garden.

Speak to us of Freedom, in situ in the garden of a house in Chelsea

Speak to us of Freedom, in situ in the garden of a house in Chelsea – close up

The installation team.

And so another work in the Gibran Sculpture Series takes its place.
I’m so pleased with the result and, happily, so is the client.

 HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh inside the UN, about to present the Hands in Prayer sculpture (bottom right) on behalf of the Icorec Trust.

You may have noticed that I have made another similar work to this one which is called Please Speak to us of Prayer, in the Gibran Sculpture Series.  They are similar, but quite distinct.  This one, has the palms facing upward, and the other with the palms facing together.  I feel both are representative of prayer and I’m proud of them both!

So we now have the main components assembled, but not yet the complete sculpture.
Here we’ll show you the final assembly.

This is the bronze sculpture, Speak to us of Freedom in the foundry.  The statue has finally been placed in a standing position and the arms have been loosely, but accurately positioned. The next step is to weld the arms to the torso.  The dove is lying on the workbench behind.

This is a colour close up of the torso and upper arms of Speak to us of Freedom in the foundry. Welding is complete and any excess weld metal has been removed.

This colour photo shows Speak to us of Freedom lying on her stomach on a bench in the foundry. The dove is being positioned and clamped for welding.

Argon welding the dove to the top of the Speak to us of Freedom bronze sculpture in the foundry.  The argon cylinder can be seen in the background up against the back wall.

Speak to us of Freedom – final assembly

The very last step!

The final welding work being carried out on Speak to us of Freedom. The welder is facing the sculpture which is finally standing on its base. He is welding the dove to the hands of the sculpture.

Next… patination…

See the finished Speak to us of Freedom sculpture here.

Here we are, weeks down the line and many, many steps, and we still haven’t seen anything that’s recognisable as the original clay sculpture yet.  This is where it starts to come together at last!

To remind you, this is what we are starting with…

Some of the components of Spirit of Freedom in a pile on the floor.

The assembly process…

To assemble the complete sculpture, the individual cast components need to be ‘glued’ together.  This is done with a two-step argon welding process.  Two castings are put together so that their edges meet as closely as possible.  The fit ought to be very close to perfect, because after all, that’s how the castings were made in the first place.  Then they are spot welded just to hold them together mechanically while the ‘seam’ or ‘join’ is finished by a continuous weld to give the greatest strength as well as making the join invisible.

In the photo below, you can see a thin, snaking gap between two sections.  The welding torch and the rod are being used to create a continuous weld all along the joint.

Just below them you can see a spot weld, holding the two pieces together.

Here, individual castings have been fitted together and then spot welded to hold them in place. This photo shows the bottom section of the sculpture having the joints continuously welded to hide the join between the castings. The sculpture is resting on a workbench in the workshop. The background is the windows of the workshop.

This photo is a close up of the continuous welding process. It shows two sections of the sculpture being welded to hide the join between the castings. In case you can’t work out what you are looking at, the craftsman is standing on the right of the picture. His left hand is at the bottom right of the picture, holding the welding rod which appears to be pointing upwards towards the heat. His full-face protective helmet is filling the right-hand edge of the photo. A little below the current welding focus, you can see a small spot weld which is holding the castings in place until the continuous weld is complete.

This is a close-up of the inside of the base of the sculpture.  It shows three castings which have been welded together. There’s a large casting that runs from top to bottom of the left hand side of the picture and then two others held against it, one top right and the other bottom right. There red-hot heat spot is where the three edges meet in the centre of the picture. Daylight is flooding into the cavity of the sculpture from the bottom right of the picture.

This photo shows the mid-section of the sculpture fully assembled and fully welded. This section is the piece between the bottom of the neck and the very tops of the raised arms down to the bottom of the torso. It is propped up,  on the floor of the workshop with oxygen, acetylene and argon rubber welding hoses. As you can see, it is a very pale bronze colour at this stage of the process.  The brighter, horizontal hooped line is where the joint across the waist has been continuously welded.

This is the bottom half of the sculpture resting on its side on the bench in the workshop. This section is the section from the feet, or base, to the tops of the thighs. The assembly of this section is complete and a specialist is now removing any excess metal left over from the welding process to ensure that the complete assembly matches the original wax and clay sculpture.

The operator is using an angle grinder. Behind him is the back wall of the foundry, with a furnace on the far left and behind that a large galvanised hopper with, to its right, a set of concrete steps going up.

See the finished Speak to us of Freedom sculpture here.

The Gibran Sculpture Series

I’ve had a great response to the photos from the foundry, so I thought I’d let you see some more.  These photos show you the amazing skill, but also the huge amount of work, that goes into the making of these fine art bronze sculptures.  Sometimes I think we sculptors have it easy!

Some of the components of Speak to us of Freedom on a workbench in the workshop.

What on earth am I looking at?

To the left, there’s a compressed-air drill which is connected to a spiral supply hose.  That’s used for cleaning.  Next to that is a vice, mounted to the bench.  Round the vice are the cast  bronze components.  They have been removed from their moulds, but they still have bits of white clay mould attached to them.

As well as the bits of investment material, they still have the solidified bronze casting runners and pouring funnels attached.  These are used in the casting process to get the molten metal where it needs to be.

Then there are two bronze forearms, including hands.  They still have the white investment material inside.  The arms on the original sculpture are solid of course, but are designed to be hollow when they’re turned into bronze.  To make them hollow, the mould has to be filled with something else before the molten bronze is poured, otherwise they won’t be hollow!  Clay investment material is what is used, and that stays there until such time as it’s removed.

Next, these cast bronze components need to be cleaned before anything else can be done to them.

The individual components

A section of skirt…

Here is a section of the skirt. It is resting on a workbench in the workshop and is flecked with bits of white investment material that are the remains of the mould in which it was cast. It is waiting to be cleaned which will remove those bits completely.

The left hand and forearm…

This is the casting of the left forearm and hand.  The foundryman is removing one of the feeders or risers used during casting.

The upper torso, shoulders and top of the upper arms…

This casting is of the top of the torso and the tops of the upper arms. The foundryman is removing one of the runners or risers used during casting.  The flecks are bits of white investment material from the mould.  When he’s finished fettling (cutting off the unwanted pieces of bronze), he’ll clean them off as the next job.  To the left of the picture are the pouring funnel and runners or feeders, still attached.

The Dove of Peace…

This is the Dove of Peace from the bronze sculpture.  It is being cleaned after casting.  It is resting on its right wing, with the underside of the left wing facing the camera.
The bottom of the wing, where it meets the body, looks white, while the rest of the casting is a golden bronze. The white is the remains of the investment plaster still sticking to the casting. The foundryman is cleaning the material off, using a drill with a suitably abrasive attachment on a long shaft.

The right hand and forearm…

Here is the right hand and forearm of the bronze sculpture. It is being cleaned. The casting is resting horizontally and palm up. A foundryman is using a compressed-air drill to remove the investment plaster from the inside of the casting to prepare it for the next stage in the process.

A section of skirt…

This is a foundryman removing internal bits of the mould left after casting. He is using a hammer and chisel to separate the bits of fine white investment material that remain. They all need to be removed, before the next stage. Behind the casting on the bench, in a large round green bowl, are pieces of castings used during casting itself, but no longer needed. They have been cut off to leave just the original sculpture shape.

All these waste pieces will be melted down and used again.  It may not be gold or silver, but bronze is an expensive alloy and precious, so it is important not to waste it!

Lots of bits!

Here are some of the individual castings that go to make up the finished bronze sculpture. They are resting on the floor of the workshop in a jumbled pile. Some of the pieces are identifiable such as the hands, the dove, the waist and the upper torso and upper arms, but the rest are incomprehensible!

All of this work, and we still haven’t got a recognisable outline of the finished sculpture!

More as it happens!

See the finished Speak to us of Freedom sculpture here.