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…
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The Jamws W Scoville Elmslie Sullivanesque panel kiln firing
After 4 weeks of drying I placed the pressed clay Chicago James Scoville building “Sullivanesque” panel in the kiln and turned ‘er on. I changed the program on the controller slightly for this piece by bumping the temperature up and adding 10 minutes soak time to when the kiln reaches that temperature. About 37 hours from now the kiln will shut off and take half a day to cool down before I see what I get. Meanwhile, here it is sitting in the kiln when I turned it on. The light yellow colored deals touching the back of the panel are shelf posts and I placed them on both front…
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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…
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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…
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Two new models in the works, Scoville lunette and Washington Irving school pier capital W-1
I printed out the two full sized reference images I need for the two planned models, a tape measure opened to 24″ is for visually scaling the sizes in the image. The one on the right is a W-1 pier capital design from the Washington Irving school, Hammond Indiana, the one on the left is a lunette design from the James Scoville building in Chicago. The Scoville lunette is from an assembly of two that were sold at an auction outfit for some $15,000, while the pier capital from the 1936 Hammond Indiana school was designed by George Grant Elmslie and William Hutton in the Sullivanesque style by Louis Sullivan.…
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Master mold for the Elmslie/Sullivanesque James W Scoville building design
With the plaster backing done for the rubber positive I made yesterday, I removed the assembly from the rubber mold. Once the plaster backing on this master positive is soaped up well, I can make the plaster piece-mold of this for pressing the terracotta into, The piece mold will be made in at least 5 pieces, most likely about 8 pieces. It won’t happen very soon as I used up the very last bag of pottery plaster I had on hand and I’ll have to order more along with some other materials and I need some more clay, but I don’t want to order clay when it’s below freezing, so…
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Another model from the James W. Scoville, Adler & Sullivan designed, Chicago building
The Virginia Museum of fine art which has a few artifacts from this building also has at least one of these lunettes with a very similar design on it as the spandrel panels have. I like the shape of it as well, I have no plans to but easily could make the surrounding flat pieces for it if a client wanted them. I will be working on this model very soon, of course it takes time and this type of work is done when I have time, and more time for the various mold making processes to get done, but progress photos will come along here soon enough. This would…
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Louis Sullivan “Sullivanesque” design
I just ordered the two gallons of pourable mold rubber I need to “convert” my “Sullivanesque” design that was recently finished- into a form I can take a plaster piece mold from for pressing terracotta into. Two gallons is not enough to fill the mold, it is only enough to pour about 1″ deep, the rest of the depth will have to be plaster to save on the costs of not having to buy two more gallons of expensive rubber.
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Louis Sullivan Sullivanesque mold finished, and a timelapse video.
At last the mold is finished along with the complete time lapse video for that process; I also cast the first interior cast from the mold and gave it a weathered antiqued wash so I could get a photo. It will be available in brick red, kiln fired terracotta as well. To purchase a cast of this design; https://www.urbansculptures.com/cart/product/sullivanesque-panel-after-james-w-scoville-chicago-nr-ls-2/
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Louis Sullivan, Elmsley, Schneider James W Scoville building Chicago, mold
Now with the clay model done and ready to make the mold of this interesting webbed lotus flower motif, I have begun that process today and will be finishing it to-morrow A timelapse video of the process; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBhOYdwVyhU