• Architectural Sculptures,  Sculpture of the week

    Sculpture of the week (December 31st, 2019)

    Art Deco Chanin Building Panel D8 “Activity” To purchase an interior cast of this; Art Deco Chanin Building Panel D8 “Activity”     HISTORY of the building The 56 story tall Chanin Building is a brick and terra-cotta skyscraper located at 122 East 42nd Street, at the corner of Lexington Avenue, in Manhattan. Built by Irwin S. Chanin in 1929 It was designed by Sloan & Robertson in the Art Deco style, with the assistance of Chanin’s own architect Jacques Delamarre, and it incorporates architectural sculpture by noted sculptor Rene Paul Chambellan. In the lobbies, eight bronze reliefs designed by Rene Paul Chambellan are inset in the walls above ornate…

  • Architectural Sculptures,  Sculpture of the week

    Sculpture of the week (December 24th, 2019)

    Art Deco Chanin Building Panel D9 “Endurance”   To purchase an interior cast of this sculpture;   Art Deco Chanin Building Panel D9 “Endurance”   HISTORY of the building The 56 story tall Chanin Building is a brick and terra-cotta skyscraper located at 122 East 42nd Street, at the corner of Lexington Avenue, in Manhattan. Built by Irwin S. Chanin in 1929 It was designed by Sloan & Robertson in the Art Deco style, with the assistance of Chanin’s own architect Jacques Delamarre, and it incorporates architectural sculpture by noted sculptor Rene Paul Chambellan. In the lobbies, eight bronze reliefs designed by Rene Paul Chambellan are inset in the walls…

  • Sculpture of the week

    Sculpture of the week (November 19th, 2019)

    Sullivanesque panel, after historic artifacts once on the James W Scoville building, Chicago. I am excited to offer this interesting  Sullivanesque 1884 design after the artifacts that were connected to  Adler & Sullivan, George Elmslie, Kristian Schneider, and  once installed on the James W Scoville building in Chicago. Those involved in creating the original 1884 Chicago design are said to have included; Dankmar Adler Louis Sullivan George Grant Elmslie Kristian Schneider Significance: The James W. Scoville factory building, designed by Adler & Sullivan contains three different designs belonging to the transitional period (1880 and 1890) of  Louis Sullivan’s architectural ornament. This structure was the best and most ornamental of all…

  • Architectural Sculptures

    Washington Irving school Sullivanesque Pier Capital

    Hope to finally finish this Sullivanesque pier capital to-morrow, the clay is getting pretty firm despite being covered with plastic and spritzed with water, so it needs to be finished now. It’s amazing how much time this design takes, probably twice what other models I’ve done have taken, there’s a lot of detail packed in on the surface! I still have 5 of the 8 “squares” along the sides- the 4 on the right and the bottom left one to finish refining and cleaning up and then it’s done.   Now that the model is done it is drying out. There is an 11 minute long timelapse video showing the…

  • Architectural Sculptures

    Washington Irving Louis Sullivan Sullivanesque pier capital model progress

    Working now on final cleaning up, detailing and refining, I haven’t had time to work on it the last couple of weeks as other projects and things needed my attention. I expect it will take quite a few more hours to finally get this done, the clay is getting firmer despite misting it with water and keeping it covered with plastic, so it needs to be finished as soon as I can get it done!

  • Architectural Sculptures

    James W Scoville building terracotta

    This James W Scoville building Elmslie “Sullivanesque” sculpture is now out of the kiln, it is still about 200 degrees and had to be handled with gloves, it turned out perfect! One can see the color change in photos from the previous dry/unfired state and now that it’s been fired to a little over 2,079 degrees, actually cone 2 tipped because I added a 15 minute “hold” at the set temperature, but because of the “heat work” it went a little higher, but the result is better and the color is nice and even top to bottom, whereas in the past the very bottom of large pieces like this would…

  • Architectural Sculptures

    James W Scoville, George Elmsley/Sullivanesque design first pressed clay

    The first hand-pressed clay sculpture is finished and drying now before it can be kiln fired. Once this is fired in the kiln I will have an exact size and weight and a firm price for these signed, numbered and dated works reproducing this historic George Grant Elmslie/Louis Sullivan 1884 Chicago design featuring a  styled webbed lotus. The design is an early work by these men and  it dates to the  foundation of what has become known as the “Sullivanesque” style of architectural ornament.   The James W Scoville building was demolished in the 1970s, many of the original artifacts were salvaged, most are in private collections while a few…

  • Architectural Sculptures

    First pressing of the James Scoville “Sullivanesque” terracotta panel

    I pressed the first  LS2 panel today,  it took 60 pounds of clay,  the sculpture will need to firm up a little and dry a little before I can finish cleaning up and refining the surface details. It takes about 2- 3 weeks of slow, careful drying of pressed clay sculptures of this size before they can be kiln fired. The firing process in an electric kiln takes approximately 36 hours and the high quality clay I use is fired to what is known as “Cone 1”- about 2,100 degrees F which vitrifies it nicely to become harder and less porous than standard hard bricks are. Once the sculpture was…