• 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…

  • Architectural Sculptures,  Sculpture of the week

    Sculpture of the week (December 17th, 2019)

    Art Deco Chanin Building Panel D10 “Enlightenment”   To purchase a cast of this sculpture;   Art Deco Chanin Building Panel D10 “Enlightenment” 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…

  • 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

    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…

  • Architectural Sculptures

    George Elmslie/Scoville building design mold ready

    The new mold for pressing terracotta from is finally dry, it took 2 weeks in front on a box fan on high. The main base piece weighs 90#, the other 6 sections probably adds another 50# to that. George Elmslie and Dankmar Adler’s  1884 Chicagoan  James Scoville building  “Sullivanesque” design is sure to be stunning in kiln fired red terracotta. There are a few originals out there, at least one is sitting in a Virginia museum, and others as well as other designs from the same building have been spotted on already sold live-auction sites after having sold for an insane $5,000- $15,000, but when people have NO lower cost…

  • Architectural Sculptures

    James Scoville Elmslie 1884 “Sullivanesque” mold

    The plaster-piece mold for this is done, waiting for the last section to set before taking it apart, and finishing up the last segment of a time-lapse video of it. It took 125# of plaster and some 7 gallons of water, about half of that water will evaporate out. It will be probably 2 weeks with fans blowing on it to dry it out enough to use for pressing the clay into. This is exactly how the working molds were made for all of the Elmslie “Sullivaesque” terracotta, and all of the similar architectural terracotta as well. About the biggest difference between then and now is only in my using…