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Photos and story of the creation
of a bronze, below.
On a special summer's day at the Kentucky Horse Park, people gathered
in front of The International Museum of the Horse to unveil and dedicate, as the frontis piece for the museum, a Life
Size Bronze Horse Sculpture. The sculpture is a portrait bronze of an American Saddlebred champion - five time World Champion "The Phoenix."
The Kentucky Horse
Park had requested of sculptor Patricia Crane
that she sculpt for this site "a horse with a legend." Show ring World
Champion "The Phoenix" sported a unique personality and championship
titles spanning nine consecutive years, from his first show ring appearance
to his last and was a popular choice as the subject of the sculpture
project that was to span a year in the making.
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READ ABOUT A SECOND LIFE SIZE BRONZE HORSE SCULPTURE:
Life Size Horse Sculpture for the American Saddlebred Museum
OTHER BRONZE RESOURCES;
For Saddlebred
Lovers
Gallery of Bronze
Sculptures
Four Decades of Horse Art by Patricia Crane
Bio of Sculptor Patricia Crane
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In honor of their champion, the owners generously sponsored the creation of
this grand work of art. This Life Size Bronze Horse Sculpture, so faithful in appearance and spirit to The Phoenix , will long greet
visitors to the Kentucky Horse Park and to all those who pass through the front doors of this museum.
The pictorial exhibit which follows, chronicles the creation of this
magnificent sculpture. At the conclusion, a scale model of the life size sculpture is offered to the general public in a signed
and numbered, very limited edition of museum quality bronze.
Patricia begins each life size portrait bronze with an in depth study of the anatomy
of the individual horse, the proportion, way
of moving and individual personality. Once a pose has been selected, a life size bronze horse sculpture
must have a weight-bearing armature engineered and constructed that can support
the many pounds of clay needed for such large scale sculpture work.
After many months of
labor the armature is not only totally covered and hidden by the sculpted clay,
the completed soft clay also becomes a successful portrait of The Phoenix. This
fragile clay is the original sculpture and stands eight feet tall.
Now that the clay sculpture is completed, the first in a series of three molds is begun.
This first mold is called a "waste-mold". The life size clay horse is divided into sections. What will be a life size bronze
horse sculpture begins as a clay horse now in sections of head and neck, body from chest to rump, tail, and four separate legs. A
mixture of plaster is slowly built up several inches thick to cover each section. A framework of pipe is embedded into the plaster for
strength. Once the plaster has hardened, each section of plaster mold is pulled away from the clay. During this separation the clay
horse, being soft, becomes damaged goods! But the inside of the hard plaster bears a perfect impression of the clay horse.
The sections of waste mold are placed back together and liquid plaster is poured into the hard plaster waste molds of what will soon
be joined together in the life size bronze horse sculpture. When the interior plaster hardens it is of course in the shape of the horse.
To reach the plaster horse inside however, the exterior plaster mold must be "wasted" by chipping it carefully away until it
no longer exists, which is why it is called a waste mold.
We began with an eight foot soft clay horse and through use of the waste mold we now have a hard plaster horse in separate sections.
A latex and rubber sculpture mold is now made of each plaster horse section. The image shows the rubber mold of the horse's head (upside down with
the nose pointed at the viewer). The rubber mold for our life size bronze horse sculpture is red, in the photo. It is kept from being
able to move or sag by a plaster outer layer. The plaster outer layer, or "mother mold" is clamped tightly shut while hot
liquid, red colored wax is poured inside.
Once the special
sculpture wax is cooled and has hardened, the plaster mother mold is unclamped and the rubber mold is opened and in this instance the
back portion of the torso is revealed in perfectly formed wax. (plaster horse head in background). In this way each plaster horse section is
translated into a wax horse section in this stage of work toward a life size bronze horse sculpture. Each wax
sculpture section requires hours
of hand labor to "correct" all blemishes and seam lines left by the molding process. (The rubber mold is saved for future use
but remains viable for a limited time.)
When all wax
horse sections are perfect, a third and final sculpture mold is made - the "investment". Each wax is coated layer upon layer
with what will become a concrete hard investment material capable of withstanding great heat. A system of "gates" or air vents
and channels are engineered into this mold so no air bubbles will destroy the actual casting of the life size bronze horse sculpture.
The investment has hardened and is complete, and now the wax horse section inside, which took so many hours to correct is "burned
out". The wax is destroyed by heat; and the empty mold remains. This is the time-honored, centuries old "Lost Wax"
sculpture method
of bronze casting.
Each sculpture mold
of the horse is placed
in a sand pit (for heat dispersal). Liquid bronze at 2200 degrees F and
resembling liquid fire, is poured from a furnace into a special, portable
container called the "crucible". From the crucible the liquid bronze is carried
to the sand pit and each mold is filled. Once cooled, the solid bronze must be
freed from this final mold. To do this the investment material must be carefully
broken away. First power tools then hand tools are used, so as not to mar the
sections of the life size bronze horse sculpture inside of each mold.
Once each bronze horse section has been freed from the investment mold, the bronze sections are first spot welded together, then
each area is arc welded so all the parts of the horse sculpture are together once again and we have a whole horse.
The now standing bronze
horse must be again "chased" painstakingly by hand until
all evidence of weld marks is gone and all surface
blemishes of the sculpture are corrected.
The bronze horse weighs about 1700 pounds. Bronze
sculpture does not rust, but the elements in mother nature form a "patina", or coating,
the color of green on the surface of the raw, yellow bronze. An enduring man made patina can be achieved by using an acetylene torch to
etch chemicals into the surface of the raw bronze, to create a more pleasing color and to help protect the life size bronze horse
sculpture.
The true and enduring patination process
of a sculpture must be achieved by heat and many, many hours of applying thin layers of chemical over and
over, to every square inch of the total surface of the horse.
When an artist casts a bronze edition, each casting in that sculpture edition must begin with pouring wax into the rubber mold. The mold is
always kept until it loses its accurate shape. Each wax must then proceed through all of the stages previously described.
The Phoenix arrives at the Kentucky Horse Park, in his final form as a completed life size bronze horse sculpture. He remains
draped until the day of unveiling. Work on the black granite cobblestone base of
the sculpture continues.
On the day of dedication, The Phoenix Bronze is slowly unveiled while the public, media representatives, and TV cameras record the event.
Phoenix graces the front door of the museum as guests stream by to view the
sculpture. Many of them have
known the horse and applaud the realism of his detailed portrait.
The life size "Phoenix Bronze"
sculpture can be seen at The International Museum of the Horse, at the Kentucky Horse Park, in
Lexington, Kentucky.
Now read about another Life Size Horse Sculpture:
for the American Saddlebred Museum, a monumental portrait of a very famous stallion.
Also of interest is the section on Bronze Sculpture,
the site's Horse Sculpture Gallery.
For Saddlebred lovers, this link is provided which
leads to many of this breed's site pages.
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