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Foam Armature for Cast Lead Crystal Sculpture (Work in Progress)
17'-6" x 4'-3" x 3'-8"

The making of a commissioned large scale work in any media involves several steps. After the designs have been sketched and the drawings approved by the client, a scale model is prepared in clay. After the client has approved the model, the model is enlarged to full scale. Here you will see some of this process. Since the work is to be transparent, and hollow, any relief on the interior will be visible; for this project, much imagination is required to see what the final product will look like when both the interior and exterior are visible at the same time. From this stage, we will apply a type of clay that is soft and pliable at elevated temperatures, but hard enough to polish at room temperature. We will polish the piece entirely before we proceed. Molds will be taken of the finished clay master, and then wax will be poured into those molds. After the mold is removed, a high temperature mold will be made around the wax. Any sprues needed to facilitate the flow of the molten glass are added at this time. The wax is then melted out of the mold, leaving a clean cavity that is a perfect reproduction of the clay master. Molten crystal is poured into the cavity and cooled very slowly over several weeks. The final castings are cleaned and polished in large acid baths, and assembled on site to form the completed sculpture. The ability to sculpt both the interior and exterior of a work and have both be visible at the same time is impossible on a small scale- we know of no precedent for a work using this technique. Certainly not a work of this scale. Check back every now and then to see further process shots. This piece is very actively being worked on at the time of this writing.

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