Year of The Griffon

Chimaeras have been haunting artists' portfolios since antiquity. Now they've infiltrated mine! An enduring symbol of courage and protection, the Griffon is an apt mascot for 2021. Six months in the making, this has been the most challenging abstraction I have tackled to date. I am currently enlarging my original sculpture from 44 inches to seven feet high in foam & resin by 3D scanning/CNC milling. From there it will be molded and cast in bronze. Fortify your dominion with a pair of Gothic Chimaeras! For pre-sale details: call or write

3D scan digital rendering: life-sized scaling of Dave Stevenson’s new Griffon sculpture.

Mirror-image digital rendering of new Griffon sculpture by New York sculptor Dave Stevenson

And Then the Tiny Elf Clutched His Tiny Tools...

…with His Tiny Hands to Make a Tiny…

Cabri (wild goat), in-progress. Inspired by the impish little beasts that frolic among the hills of St-Barth, F.W.I. (Pendant available in sterling silver, & 18k gold.)

How to Make a Monumental Bronze (in 44 seconds)

Almost Done...Final Step? Build The Base!!

Here's a detail shot of the gorgeous patina we just completed at Polich-Tallix Foundry with patina artist Rosemary Rednour. We started out with my classic Fireball Patina but ended up with what I'm calling Rattlesnake because the final mix reminds me of the timber rattlers and copperheads we encounter when climbing at the Gunks. 

What's the final step? Build the base & schedule installation! I'm leaning towards a steel, trapezoidal design that will raise Acrobat about 21"-26" above ground level...

If you would like to contribute to The Acrobat Project, peruse the Sculpturezoo Art Gallery to purchase my original art & jewelry, or click on the RED donate button on the Sculpturezoo homepage. Thank you for visiting. Enjoy the Zoo!

A Bronze Cartoon

One of my favorite creations, Poodlerat (bronze, 7" X 7" X 4") inspired the words above plus another 17 pages or so since. So when do you get to meet Fatdog, Raccoonbat & The Angry Pomeranian? Keep your eyes on The Zoo! Meanwhile, visit the Gift Shop to bring home Poodlerat: He'll keep you company until the rest of his gang of mischief-makers & malcontents arrives!

SHARK!

I’ve always wanted to abstract a sleek and fearsome shark, so this is my first stab at the stunning Caribbean Reef Shark, created during the wintry mix of sleet n snow that pounded the City today. The next step is to enlarge this 12” wire drawing to my normal “working scale” of about 2.5-3 feet, then add mass to the wireframe with foam and resin. If I manage to capture the formidable power, speed & beauty of this graceful predator, I’ll mold it & cast it in stainless steel! 

So this is the part where I'm supposed to just add my second photo, the side B if you will, of the same sculpture depicted below. But somehow in the midst of photo-editing I was overcome by an inane will to compose a childish rhyme to go along with it. One silly line led to the next until...well, there's really no fair excuse for it all. May I blame it on a recent weekend in CT with one children's book that could not be put to its fair, final resting place no matter how many pillows we buried it under, repeatedly!? 

I certainly don't want to overwrite the fine song already in your happy head so lets just say the book dealt with one particular redundant BUS ride and its incessant, screeching, howling, desperately in-need-of-oil (and a god-help-us how about a flat tire?) wheels...But jest, do I. My friends have an adorable daughter who I love spending time with. Maybe next time she will have moved on to trains. Trains are good. Trains are fun plus they're a lot faster than buses and... 

P.S. I just wrote a book for Foster (i.e. Annette & Matthew & their Tenacious Bus Song Loving Crew) at the rest stop where I pulled over for coffee on my way to the studio today. I'm about to start the drawings/story-boarding. It's about my beloved kitty Mischka of course...in no small part inspired by conversations with Bunny and our hilarious weekend experiencing Annette's SNL-worthy speed-reading juxtaposed with Matthew's Broadway-beating performances.

Scaling the Base

I cobbled this wooden base together with scrap wood at my studio, even going so far as to lather on a faux patina to double check the scale against my bronze sculpture. It will be fabricated in bronze next week and eventually surfaced with a REAL, stunning patina.

See that tiny little black magic-marker circle? There are a few more of those just out of sight. They mark the final spot-welds I need welded-up and chased. After that, we'll crane-walk it into the patina room!

Matching/Assembly for Final Weld-up

I drove across the NEW Tappan Zee bridge--just three days after it reopened--on the way to the foundry (& my studio) today. Not exactly the most aesthetically exhilarating experience, but still kind of exciting because I have enjoyed watching it rise S L O W L Y from the Hudson River since the project began. 

Once at the foundry, I approved the weld-up for the two sections of Acrobat--making sure both pieces matched perfectly before sealing them together for eternity. It's a symmetrical piece, so sure, I took a few measurements, but mostly it's just done by eye. The "Boomerang" video below shows us preparing to assemble the sculpture using a forklift as a crane. 

What's next? I'll grind out and polish the welds tomorrow, and after the holiday weekend I'll map out the final design for the base--then, patina time!

Spot-welding (Thanks, Bob!) some of the small imperfections that occur naturally during the casting process. Afterwards, I ground them down and polished the surface smooth.

220 Grit! 150 is So Last Week...

>"Half-crobats" today @Polich-Tallix Foundry (NEW location) Walden, NY. Polich Polish Punishment Progress? 

Put a Sticker on it

This Spring add some Zing to your: lunchbox, skateboard, dumbphone, notebook, litterbox, birdcage, briefcase, suitcase, tacklebox, grandma, sewing machine, guitar amp, forehead, harmonica case, water bottle, learjet, jet ski, wait…you have a jet ski?  Put a sticker on it!

Available exclusively from the Gift Shop @ Sculpturezoo.com. 

Sculpturezoo.com is my crowdfunding effort to raise a massive bronze sculpture above Tribeca concrete for NYC Parks'/Art in the Parks by summer, 2017.

Going Bonkerdoodles Today in the Wax Room, w/Pete & Repeat

It’s no secret I hate wax. I should replace hate with loathe. Despise? Maybe detest is better. Except that sounds too academic. Oh, I #^%@&*^ wax! 

Chasing, in case you're wondering, is the innocuous term for smoothing out every single unsightly nick and scratch of a wax prototype, and filling any untoward dips and undulations that deviate from or threaten the integrity of the original sculpture. Any imperfection undetected during this stage will show up in bronze, where the labor to rectify it is increased by a factor of 3. Hence the endless mind-numbing pursuit for flaws in the wax. Since the material is inherently soft, repairing one side of a form invariably nicks the opposite side. Pete & Repeat ad nauseum.  

The tedious, interminable, agonizing wax stage is a necessary phase of bronze casting. To get through it I take constant breaks. For water. Coffee. M & M’s. I read inane celebrity news. I hang from the rafters. And blame my apathy & indolence on undiagnosed ADHD.

But I'm almost done! Next week we’ll weld up “Acrobat” to set the mounting angle, and cut it back up into 4 sections for final gating to prep for casting. Wax, schmax. Grinding, filing & polishing bronze? That’s The Part I am Looking Forward To!!!!!! I think it’s safe to say everyone in Polich-Tallix’s wax room is looking forward to that too.

View fullsize

Acrobat, wax prototype, 7'3", by Dave Stevenson, Polich-Tallix Foundry