A wax section of the base of the whale tail is released from its mold at Artworks Foundry in Berkeley Piero Mussi helps me make final adjustments to the base before it is prepared for casting in bronze The other sections have been reinforced and coated in a silica/ceramic slip to keep their shape when […]
Category Archives: project dispatches
Fluke Waxes
Wax sections of our Fluke sculpture hang by a window at Artworks Foundry in Berkeley Something about seeing the Fluke waxes for the first time, hanging backlit by the foundry windows like curing hams, signaled the arrival of autumn. Maybe it was the lower angle of the sun, or the sweet smell of wax melting, […]
Installing Abundance
Looking towards Ocean Beach from the new Ortega Branch of the SF Public Library Ene and I spent the early part of this week installing our Abundance project at the new Ortega Branch of the San Francisco Public Library, just up the hill from Ocean Beach. We had been living with these sculptures while making […]
Spark
Ali Blateis, our Project Assistant, tacks down hand-cut glass on one of Spark’s panels If you’ve been to the wowhaus studio in the past six months, you’d have noticed the neatly piled stacks of hand-cut, iridescent and mirrored glass everywhere that we’ve been transforming into a series of mosaic murals, called Spark, now nearing completion. […]
Tales from the Whale Tail
We layered the texture over coats of flat grey paint to see the contrast. As Ene and I near completion on this phase of our Fluke sculpture, having spent the week fairing the form and applying a texture to the entire surface before molds are made prior to bronze casting, I realize how much I […]
Fluke Assembly
Enrico and I clamp Fluke’s base while Piero drives wooden dowels to pin it together Ene and I spent the past few days preparing the foam parts of our Fluke sculpture for assembly. After priming the surfaces with latex paint, skim coating the open cells with joint compound and sanding them smooth, we applied a […]
Fluke Progress
Ene applies a scratch coat of plaster to a section of our Fluke sculpture We’ve begun to apply a surface texture to the foam sections comprising our Fluke Project, featuring a life-size sculptural interpretation of a humpback whale tail, to be cast in bronze and permanently installed at the NOAA Marine Sanctuary Exploration Center in […]