Spring 2016 Updates and Notes
A day in the Life..... I love being an artist and it is immensely rewarding to walk down the path from our house, third cup of coffee in hand, settle into my studio each day and start creating a new sculpture. The studio is warm and inviting and full of inspirational images and keepsakes; it is a very peaceful and comfortable place to work. When I am in the midst of creating a new sculpture I will often work for 10 to 12 hours a day taking frequent breaks along the way to walk in the garden and stretch my muscles, as the sculpting requires some very intense focus and concentration and can be quite exhausting. This is all balanced out by the extremely gratifying sense of achievement and satisfaction when that clay shape and texture comes to life and you know that you have created something with lasting appeal.
Of course this doesn’t happen every day as in between the start of each new sculpture there are a lot of technical processes and details and grunt work that need to be tended to. The mold-making process for each sculpture will typically consume one to two weeks time working with a messy array of rubber, metal, plaster and fibreglass, cutting, mixing, trimming and drilling. After the mold is done, we need to make a wax replica of the original sculpture making sure it matches all the detail of the original sculpture and then get the wax replica ready for delivery to the foundry. With the wax replica done and delivered to the foundry, it is inevitably time to regroup, clean and organize the studio and get started on, or back to, the next project.
In between the creative and technical processes out in the studio, there is a lot of business to tend to and this typically takes some dedicated effort each day – lots of planning and strategizing. Client correspondence, upcoming art shows and displays, inventory management, arranging studio supplies, on-line and print media advertising, project quotes, website development, social media work (a recent undertaking), cash flow and financial management and on a really good day, scheduling a studio tour for clients, or building a shipping crate for a sold sculpture!
The technical tasks and many artisan skill-sets required at the foundry are a whole other story which I will describe in a subsequent post.
New Works in Progress: This is an in-progress snapshotof my latest creation, a pair of Sandhill Cranes which I expect to have cast in bronze by May of this year. These pieces were inspired by a longstanding fascination with these incredible migratory birds and more recently by some fortuitous observations made last summer during a road trip through Northern Idaho.
Other new works that will be posted on the Website this spring include a new custom designed coffee table commission that incorporates a heart-shaped piece of maple burl supported by three giant bronze octopus legs with a small feature octopus suspended under glass.
There is a also a new sculpture of a standing Grizzly bear, a sculpture that was inspired by a close encounter last summer while exploring Desolation Sound. Someday I hope to be able to create a life-sized version of this piece.
A Note to Potential Clients: There has never been a better time to consider purchasing a bronze sculpture from a Canadian Artist such as myself. With the discounted Canadian Dollar I am able to price my sculptures at a significant discount for USA purchases. For Corporate Canadian clients, I have some very interesting information on CRA tax treatments for Art work produced by Canadian artists.