Scoville building "Sullivanesque" style panel clay pressing
- 5 years ago
Hand-pressing course red clay with sand and grog into the plaster piece-mold.
The design is after the 1884 spandrel panel design once on the James Scoville building in Chicago (Demolished 1973)
Some of the original pieces removed from the facade are in museums, one is in a museum in Virginia.
I made my slightly smaller version of the historic Louis Sullivan/Dankmar Adler/George Elmslie design from photos and known measurements to create a set of two molds- one for casting interior cast-stone for display on the wall, the other- pictured- for pressing clay for the kiln fired red terracotta version which is made deeper to embed into a brick, concrete or stone wall, or to display in the garden or indoors as clients may prefer.
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 is removed from the plaster mold, I have to spend considerable time going over every milimeter of the surface to model-in any missing details, sharpen edges, eliminate any surface defects, mold seams etc.
This will be shown in another clip.
Each is a signed, numbered and dated work of art.
To purchase this or any of my other works, visit: https://www.UrbanSculptures.com
Hand-pressed sculpture work is NOT the same as the cheap, mass produced low fired, thin walled slip cast red clay pottery made in China that is sold in stores for the garden that usually falls apart, I suspect a lot of that is tinted plaster and not true terracotta at all.
Slip cast statues are made with thin liquid clay simply poured into a mold like plaster and removed a few minutes later.
The design is after the 1884 spandrel panel design once on the James Scoville building in Chicago (Demolished 1973)
Some of the original pieces removed from the facade are in museums, one is in a museum in Virginia.
I made my slightly smaller version of the historic Louis Sullivan/Dankmar Adler/George Elmslie design from photos and known measurements to create a set of two molds- one for casting interior cast-stone for display on the wall, the other- pictured- for pressing clay for the kiln fired red terracotta version which is made deeper to embed into a brick, concrete or stone wall, or to display in the garden or indoors as clients may prefer.
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 is removed from the plaster mold, I have to spend considerable time going over every milimeter of the surface to model-in any missing details, sharpen edges, eliminate any surface defects, mold seams etc.
This will be shown in another clip.
Each is a signed, numbered and dated work of art.
To purchase this or any of my other works, visit: https://www.UrbanSculptures.com
Hand-pressed sculpture work is NOT the same as the cheap, mass produced low fired, thin walled slip cast red clay pottery made in China that is sold in stores for the garden that usually falls apart, I suspect a lot of that is tinted plaster and not true terracotta at all.
Slip cast statues are made with thin liquid clay simply poured into a mold like plaster and removed a few minutes later.