Home of the Innocents bronzes

This is ascension. It has yet to be sandblasted and have a patina applied

Here is Metamorphosis with butterflies flying from the blanket.

A side view of the butterflies

This is Art Castings Foundry in Loveland, Colorado where the sculptures for the Home of the Innocents are being cast.

The waxes are dipped into ceramic slurry (a 14 day process to build up a sufficient shell) and are then put into a burnout
oven where the wax is melted out and the ceramic shell hardens. When the shells come out of the oven they are ready to be filled with bronze.

Here is the bronze being poured. It is over 2,000 degrees fahrenheit.

These are the areas where individual sculptures are "chased" Chasing means that the places where the gates and sprues were attached, as well as welded areas, are carved to duplicate the original surface of the sculpture.

While posting pictures from my trip to the Colorado foundry, I found a couple of images that I thought were interesting.
This is an odd flower, no idea what it is. It had been raining and the light was getting low, so I had to use a flash. But that made it stand out more from the background.

This is the summit of Sundance Mountain.

Home of the Innocents mold work finish

The mold work comes to a completion on the two sculptures for the Home of the Innocents which will commemorate the work of Sister Emily Cooper and the over 200 children

buried at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, KY.The hands are readied for the mold work.These are two butterflies. They will be placed on the blanket in various patterns, emerging from the blanket and flying up from the children's blanket.This is the blanket, the spaces where the emerging butterflies are to be attached are marked on the blanket.

The sculpture has two coats of mold material, now it is ready to get shims. Steve applies the material into which the shims will be placed.Attaching the shims.Her shims all in place, she is now ready for the rest of the mold material.After all the layers of mold material are applied, she gets a mother mold of plaster. After that

dries, the mold is removed.This is the inside of the blanket mold.

Steve helps pack up the molds for the trip to Loveland, Colorado. The sculptures will be cast at

Art Casting of Colorado.
An assortment of mold sections.

A head and two hands is within this plaster. Don wraps a mold section in preparation of it's journey. It will then be placed with all the other mold sections into the crate behind Don. R & L Trucking picks up the crates.

Loading a crate with our truck.

Steve from R&L and Don position the crate on the truck.

Mold work on the Home of the Innocents Sculptures

The sculpture entitled "Ascension" is the first to get a mold applied. Here is the finished sculpture.

The various parts of the sculpture, arms, babies arms and legs and dove get cut apart. This is so each section can be made into a two part mold. A mold release is then sprayed on.Two coats of Polygel 40 applied with paint brushes and now Don draws on a part line - this is where the two parts of the mold will separate. Steve McMillen helps Don by fitting shims to the Dove after applying the first coats of mold materialThe part line half-way down the body. Shims will be attached to the sculpture with polygel 40 combined with polyfiber which thickens it.

The shims are applied. This is plastic bubble sheet which can be purchased from Sculpture Depot in Loveland, Colorado. The bubble sheet was waxed with Trewax prior to use so that the mold material won't stick to it.

The baby's shims.
The sculptures will get approximately 6 coats of mold material.

When the sculptures are completely coated in Polygel, they get a plaster mold which is called a mother mold. The polygel captures the surface of the clay - even fingerprints, while the mother mold provides the basic support for the rubber mold. Without it, the polygel mold would distort.

After drying, the plaster and polygel molds are removed from the clay. Each 2 part section of the sculpture will then be taped back together and readied for shipping to the Foundry - Art Castings of Loveland Colorado.
Duct tape that baby!
The mold for the baby gets taped up and the bottom of the woman sculpture is turned upside down so that the inside of the skirt can be finished. It's much easier to finish this way than lying on my back reaching up inside....

Recently, my cousin Joe Marsh came to visit (he is on the right). My sister Liz is in the middle hidden behind her daughter Bethh, and her son Joey is in the red shirt. Joe, Liz and I (on left) were great friends as kids - we grew up together and went everywhere together. But as we reached adulthood, we kind of went our separate ways, but nows he's back, kind of like a long lost brother.

On Monday May 11, Liz's other son, Danny, had his 17th birthday. We celebrated at Fuji's, a Japanese restaurant in Louisville. Those are onion volcanoes.

The chef throws a ball of rice to Danny. Will he catch it? -----Actually he does!

Fireworks in honor of Danny's birth - a family tradition.

Danny blows out the candles.
In the next post I will show the quarry where I bought the stone for the Reading Girl for Charles City Iowa. It was selected for me by the quarry owner Steve Reed of Reed Quarries. It is an excellent block that I am looking forward to carving. More pics including the turning of a ledge in the next blog posting.