The kiln shut off during the night and by afternoon it was cooled down enough to open the lid and after a bit- remove the two pieces with gloved hands, the 137 came out great, it weighs 25#

I decided to put the first set of two clay sculptures in the kiln now, with the 137 grotesque on the bottom resting on it’s top, and with the shelf furniture I had to stack some posts to get the height above the sculpture so the shelf can be laid on top of them and not touch it. Once the shelf was in, 22-D was laid on her back on some posts to let the heat and air circulate inside from underneath- ditto for the 137 on the bottom which was raised up so it’s top gets the full heat and red color evens out over the whole piece. Pretty…

I now have 3 of the 137’s and 2 of the 22-D’s in pressed red terracotta almost dry, I think I’ll fire one of each in two weeks they should just fit the kiln together, and then repeat the same loading of two each weekend until they are all done. I still want to make one more of the little 22-D keystones so she can go in with the third 137 and I can get two pieces done together for the same cost. Think I’ll do the 22-D to-morrow so it can start drying out. Those 137’s are pretty thick and weigh 30# each.

I decided this stunning keystone- a cast I made of the original 1895 one I had years ago, is small enough it can be done in pressed terracotta too, but I have to make a new mold of her first, as the old rubber mold I have which was made with a brand of silicone rubber I stopped buying a decade ago when it started tearing real easily is pretty well on it’s last leg, one more cast out of that and I’m sure by now just removing the rubber from the cast will just tear into pieces. So I need a new mold, and then I’ll need to make…

It took some doing but I managed to print a full sized image of the model to be done, I had scaled the design out a couple of years ago in CAD software but now that software version I used will not run on my newer machine and I could not longer read the existing files. SO I wound going back to an older machine that was archived, that has the software on it AND works with my printer. SO I was able to scale the image 1:1 with the page layout and print it in multiple 8-1/2 x 11 sheets. I thought about this design and how I was…

Pressing #2. I still get defects that have to be hand worked over, tiny seam lines between adjacent portions of clay pressed in next to one another, I don’t know if in the old days they used a wetter clay or if it was just technique. Another time-lapse video, hand pressing another 137 grotesque keystone, starting with 40# of red clay and ending up with 35# after cleaning it up.

I think I will go ahead and start this model I planned to do back in Dec 2015 but didn’t get past setting up the form for the shape. The model was to depict one of the large cast-iron Art Deco styled ornaments once gracing the elevated West Side (Miller) Highway that ran along Manhattan’s West coast along the Hudson (North) River. The elevated highway was built starting at the end of the 1920s and construction of additional extensions continued into the 30s. The city hired noted sculptor Rene Chambellain to model replicas of the 5 historic city charter seals as well as these ornamental pieces at the foor of…

The first red clay 22-D is almost dry, probably in 2 weeks I’ll fire this one and the white one that is already loaded in the bottom of the kiln. Meanwhile I’ll be calling in my order for more materials.

I have #137’s mold finished, it took the whole 50# bag of moulding plaster. it will be a couple of weeks before it’s dried out but it will be about 3 weeks before I order more clay and materials anyway.

The first pressed 22D is dry, so she is stuck down at the bottom of the kiln where she fits nicely and also an inch away from the kiln walls. I decided the best position to fire these is flat on their backs rather than standing upright on their tops where the center webbing and the bottom could possibly sag downwards a bit from gravity when the clay gets soft from the heat. I can fit two of these in laid flat. So to do that I can use 5 of my nice tall posts to support the octagon shelf which in turn supports the 2nd sculpture. The 7 small…