When I was at the foundry last week I had hoped to see Jenna. “She is in the dip room” said Miguel. The lights are usually off in there so I figured she was taking a nap and did not want to disturb her. Being that Dick was in pieces was difficult enough. I yearn to see everything back together the way they should be.

My apprentice has been diligently working on a second wax of Jenna for me. I had hoped to get that completed and together to have it ready for my meeting today. But Alas she sat there in pieces.

As stated I prepared for a meeting with a potential new client. I hope the job comes through. It is a sweet story and will be a fun commission. The studio was all clean- that is about the only time it gets clean. Once the new projects begin it is back to the mess.

My daughter’s boyfriend, is now fiance ( he proposed in a photo booth at the 59 diner, on Thursday, after asking the parents for her hand in marriage. The 59 diner photo booth is a perfect place for a person into photography ). Bill stayed in the studio while visiting last week. My son asked, “Does it freak you out sleeping in there?” I’m glad it did not. It does make my son a little weary, don’t know if it is the sculptures or because after the sculptures are done there are a lot of body parts. You see I can reuse the clay, so the clay that was used on Dick Hathaway and Jeanna has been used on Patsy, Lucas, and others. Lots of creative energy in that clay. But I have to get the clay off of the pieces. Right now Dick Hathaway is piled, in pieces in the corner. My apprentices will help take the clay off after he is complete.

After the week-long visit, the kids are gone, and the big meeting is over. Wish I could take time to sit and be still, but there is still a lot of work to do in the studio and office. I will post more photographs of the sculptures soon.

Bridgette

Posted in Jenna

The foundry e-mailed today, wanting the bench that Dick Hathaway was created on. I had it loaded into the van and brought it over to them. When arriving to the foundry the Hathaway sculpture was everywhere! Pull yourself together Professor! Miguel the master foundry man was diligently working on putting him together. It won’t be long. What was that quote that the professor used to say, “My body is just something I use to carry around my head.”

Posted in Richard Hathaway
KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

When I was searching for reference for the Dick Hathaway memorial, I went through the collection of his books and found this page. It seemed so appropriate for what I do, what transpires with the deceased. I think of it often when I am trying to capture the essence of those I have never met and who are now gone.

The poem

Out on the end of an apple tree bough
A birdie was singing a song just now.
And when it was ended
the birdie pretended
to say good-bye,
But he did not know how!

Posted in Richard Hathaway

With my work of sculpting posthumous sculpture, my study of sculpting the deceased, and the writing of the book, “Bringing to Life the Spirit of the Deceased- A Sculptor’s Journey” which I am still searching for a publisher, I cannot believe I did not come across this word.

It means the study of everything that has to do with dying, death, and grief. There is even an organization called The Center for Thanatology Research and Education Inc.

Once again I ask myself, why am I drawn to this area? For me it is a God thing. I know that creating a sculptor of a loved one can be very healing for the family. I am extremely thankful that I have a job that helps others. But even as a child I was drawn to the subject. I write about it in my book, and may even have mentioned it before. It was my job each spring to bury the baby birds that fell from the nest hidden in the rafters of our old Victorian home. I was the only 5 year old that I know that had their own baby bird cemetery. It is an uncontrollable desire to give credence to a life lived, to somehow establish a physical existence that others can see and say, “Who was this person?”

here is a portion from the book, “I have always been intrigued with the story that I heard about elephants, marveling at the bones of their ancestors that they never knew. I remember seeing an elephant documentary that said that elephants that came across bones of their ancestors would pick them up and caress them, passing them from one to another in a respectful but mourning ritual. By doing so, it helped them come to terms with death. I feel that this action, this simple action by a wonderful and majestic creature is what I feel when I create posthumous portraiture. When the box of personal affects comes to my studio and I examine its contents, from that day forward until the day that the sculpture is complete, I have spent time lovingly caressing the life that I have had the pleasure of being introduced to. I turn that life over and over in my hands and in my heart as lovingly as those majestic elephants did with the bones of their ancestors. It is through this ritual and my art that my experience is enhanced and the healing process and letting go occur for my client.”

Posted in Education, Posthumous Sculpture

June 10
The professors glasses are all fogged up!
While at the foundry dropping off the Jenna waxes and picking up wax two, I snapped these pictures of Dick Hathaway. Here you can see his head foot and…? The white stuff on the metal is the ceramic shell. The foundry will now break this away and begin to weld him back together again. Quite a process!

The shells are gated up and dipped. Dick’s head and foot.

While at the foundry dropping of the Jenna waxes and picking up wax two I snapped these pictures of Dick Hathaway. Here you can see his head foot and…? The white stuff on the metal is the ceramic shell. The foundry will now break this away and begin to weld him back together again. Quite a process!
June 05
Today I went to see the pour of pieces of the Dick Hathaway sculpture. Here you see them pouring the head, in the background are the some other parts of the sculpture. You could say Dick Hathaway has a hot foot.

A bronze pour is something to see.

June 03
Richard Hathaway
Meanwhile I was able to take some pictures of Dick Hathaway, or at least pieces of him that have gone through the dip process. They are a bit different than the last pictures of the head.

Quite a shell around those wax pieces. If you have followed documentation process before you will note that inside these shells are the waxes. On Thursday the wax will be burned out of these shells until only a cavity remains. The molten bronze will be carefully poured within that cavity. The pour is scheduled for Thursday. I hope to get some good video footage of it for the upcoming video. I just love to watch a pour! There is something very entrancing about that glow!

Waxes of Dick gated up and ready to go.

May 29th
On with the bronze process of Professor Richard Hathaway
The next step, after the creating the waxes, is the gating of the waxes. Pour cups and wax sprues are added to the waxes that came from the Dick Hathaway molds. These are then dipped into a mixture coating the waxes both inside and out. Each of the many pieces will need to be dipped creating a ceramic shell. I went to the foundry today to take some pictures and video of the dip process for the next video that I will be creating about this sculpture. This part of the bronze process will take the foundry about a week.

Foundry dips Professor Hathaway.
After the bronze is poured in the shells they cool
the shell must be broken off each piece.
Posted in Richard Hathaway

My new client has given me permission to introduce you to this wonderful boy ‘Lij.
He is the boy in the sketches below. I was introduced to ‘Lij, through Jenna’s family. I feel so privileged to be creating with ‘Lij’s mom. She had posted this wonderful video on her Carepages. Carepages are free personal websites that connect family and friends during illness and injury. The song was produced by Songs of Love Songs of Love Foundation provides personalized songs for Chronically and terminally ill children and young adults, free of charge. I think this is one of the coolest things I have heard of in a long time. The video made me smile and cry.

Posted in Sculpture

My daughter used to love playing in boxes when she was little. That is the feeling that I get with this picture that I quickly snapped before loading Jenna into the van to go to the foundry. I have her taped in so there is no chance of her little roses coming off of her dress. Her little wings, and the hand now with a butterfly secured to her finger are in another box. It is up to the foundry now!

I have a note on the box that says, “please bead blast” When the sculpture is in complete it is usually sand blasted before the patina is added. Not many people use the bead blast but I’ll tell you it makes a difference. How to describe it… softer, yummy, translucent? I really don’t know how to describe it. Not long ago I was at a foundry and they were boasting about a sand that they use. I think it was some sort of Oklahoma sand. I am such a tactile person, I immediately asked, “may I touch it?” The moment my fingers touched it I was reminded of the only other time I “felt” what they beadblast with. I thought is was interesting that my fingers had a memory.

I still have Jenna wax two in the studio. My goal is to get her together before the end of the month for display. I have several clients coming to view my work, and it would be nice to have her there. Thank god for apprentices!

Posted in Jenna

I am often asked to create memorials for family pets, or at least sculptures to remind the owner of the love of a pet. If you remember I recently sculpted a little boy and dog, the boy whispering in his dogs ear. When the commission began I was touched when they said the dog was aging and they did not expect him to live long. I had to create the dog as part of the sculpture and did so at no charge. My client arrived at the studio yesterday and informed me the dog did indeed pass away a few weeks ago. She lovingly stroked the piece, attracted and looking at it even before she did her son. I could feel her sorrow. I identify. Her son is growing up, and this dog has been a part of his childhood. I’m going through something similar with my daughters cat of 16 years. I gave my daughter the cat when she was 6 or 7. (you don’t really take into consideration, that when they grow up and move away after college you now have a cat)

Anyway…the cat is not well. I’m more attached to the cat because of what it represents as my daughter’s childhood, then just the cat. The cat and I have both gone through our own struggles as my daughter left for college, and then moved away to Oklahoma. I guess we bonded as we each dealt with the loss, and our goodbyes and coming to terms with the new arrangement. We drew to each other in her absence.

I recently heard someone tell about how their childhood poodle helped them through the difficult times of growing up, through the alcoholism in the family and a divorce and that this poodle dying was so traumatic for them they never again had another pet. I on the other hand, foster dogs, work with shelters and at this point in my life I have two cats, two dogs, one of which is being fostered by us and has come through some horrible physical problems, two turtles and a bunch of fish in the pond, they pretty much take care of themselves and am now the feral cat lady as a mother cat found our house and dropped off her kittens, all 4 of them, which also brought two teenagers. I have no idea what to do with these cats, the shelters won’t take them. I keep feeding them and trying to get them used to people, but something has to be done.

This is my life with cats and dogs and pets. No wonder my heart goes out to those commissions that includes the family pet.

Posted in Figurines, Reflections

When I am not sculpting I love to garden. There is so much that needs to be done, and I do hope to get the pond finished in the next few weeks. Something that has trailed on for years. “I am going to order my stone, I am going to order my stone.” This is a mantra I must continue.

I decided to widen the pond, yes, they told me that this would happen years ago when I built it. They said I would continue to add. I’m also making a bog, and taking out many other plants in my yard to open it up a bit. What a lot of work. I sometimes wish I had someone to help, but my only companions is the foster dog Sam who chased the bullfrog from the plants that I pulled out of the old bog. It was so funny the two of them went around the pond and then right over the bridge!

It is so hot very hot outside in the Texas weather that when I need a break I come in and work on the wax of Jenna, and listen to the bible on tape. I’m supposed to be facilitating a Sunday school class on “read the bible in 90 days.” The facilitator should keep up, and with my busy schedule bible on tape is the only way I have been able to do it.

I should run. I’m giving away more plants. That is my favorite thing about gardening. I love posting “I have plants” on the local forums. This time they are even dug up! when the sun finally sets, it will be me and Jenna, oh yes and a shower!

It feels funny not to be in the studio all day and night. I feel very guilty, but I do have clients coming and I need to get the yard spruced up!

Posted in Jenna