I have 8 salvaged bricks with paw prints embedded into them recently purchased that came from various demolitions in St Louis Mo! Each one of these has a story but we’ll not know what it is. One brick has a fawn deer hoof print and one has what appears to be a kitten’s prints, all were pressed into the moist clay before the clay dried and firmed up. A 9th brick has 3 prints in it; A 10th one that happened to come from St Louis too but in 2014; This one is the best, deepest impression, I found this one myself in 1977 at…
-
-
New acquisition: terracotta cornice lion, Boatman’s bank 1915 annex, St Louis MO
I purchased one of these cornice lions last week, it came from the 1915 annex of the Boatmans’ bank building, St Louis. 27″H 11″W 17″D, 130# The building was originally 7 stories high, but in 1920 they added 4 more floors on after removing the roof and cornice, and then either replacing the original cornice or re-installing it all. There were 69 lions that were scaled for a 7 story building, and when it was 11 stories they looked someone “small” scaled. The terracotta and the lions were made by the Winkle terracotta Company, St Louis Photo from 1883
-
Architectural Artifact of the month (August 2019)
I thought I would start a new feature here, each month I will feature and detail one artifact from my collection. Artifact: Corinthian Capital Material: Cast iron Identification marks: J.L. Jackson New York (foundry) Dim’s h/w/d: 11” x 18-1/2” Weight: 40# The 1850 U. S. Census recorded James L. Jackson, Iron Foundry as having invested $32,000 in capital, and owning materials consisting of 1200 tons of pig iron and 500 tons of coal valued at a combined total of $24,600. The foundry employed an average of 95 workman and paid average monthly wages of $3700. The annual product consisted of 500 tons of “grate castings” worth $50,000 and 500 tons of…
-
My book: The Gargoyler of Greenwich Village (update)
I am pleased to say I now have printing for the book arranged again and the quality of the printing is excellent as before. I tried an alternate printer that was a little less cost and as soon as I got the two samples I ordered I immediately regretted it, the photos were muddy and dark, the colors washed out and even the actual photos as printed were not as clear and were somewhat “hazy” as you can see in the photo below, the upper photo in each set is the alternate printer, the bottom was printed by Amazon/KDP, mind you the original Kodak print dates back to the 1970s…
-
Sullivanesque panel Nr 3600 Morton School, Hammond, Indiana
A client purchased a number of sculptures for his home, one was the Morton school Sullivanesque frieze. We decided to do this interior cast stone version for him in the aged buff yellow finish and I think anyone can agree it looks very “old world” an just like a weathered antique fresh off the demolition site! The Oliver P. Morton High School, built in 1936 was located at 7040 Marshall Avenue, Hammond, Indiana and was demolished in the late 1980s. Once in a while an oddball piece or two of original salvaged terracotta artifacts come up for sale at pretty high prices. Many have chips and other damage to them…
-
My book
After a whole lot of trouble and trying to come up with printer solutions I think I may have it finally under control so I can get my book printed again at a reasonable cost as before with Amazon’s CreateSpace (CS). CS did some kind of merger/change and I couldn’t access my CS acct or my book files to print more copies, then they told me they no longer just print books, so I wound up shopping for a new printer and found Lulu.com after finding every other printer wanted anywhere from $48 to $67 per book plus shipping to print them! When I was selling the book for $35…
-
Tune: Resignation
-
Morton school Hammond Indiana George Elmslie, Louis Sullivan Sullivanesque
I’ve had this design in my lineup for quite a while, but this week a client purchased a cast along with several others and I started thinking that since I need to order in some materials, maybe now would be a good time to order what I need to “convert” this design so it can also be offered in my hand-pressed kiln fired red terracotta. With an original selling for around $750 at salvage outfits I know there’s a lot of people who don’t want to pay $750 plus shipping for one of the originals, and only being able to obtain one, and it having chips and damage on top…
-
My book dilemma
I was going to look at ordering a few copies of my book on createspace the other day, and I discovered I couldn’t log in, furthermore, the “forgot password” never sent me a confirmation/reset email I tried the email address in my autofill and 3 others I have used and never got the emails. So I emailed customer support on what is now known as KDP print and someone with an “Indian” sounding last name obviously had no clue, told me she couldn’t find an account with my email address on it, that if someone else published the book for me to have them use their email address, LOL!!!!…
-
129 Charles St NYC Thalman Stables horse head cast
First cast before giving the aged finish First cast in an aged buff yellow finish