Mustang

…there rose a fabled horde of mounted lancers and archers wearing shields bedight with bits of broken mirrorglass that cast a thousand unpieced suns against the eyes of their enemies. A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.

- Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy

—

Each sculpture is cast in either bronze or resin, using a mold that I create from an original sculpture in clay. If you are curious about the sculpting, molding or casting process, let me know and I’ll gladly talk your ear off.

- Editions: Each piece is a limited edition. This means that if, for example, there are 6 in the edition, once the sixth piece has been cast the mold will be destroyed and no more will be available.

- Lead Time:

- Resin cast: roughly 2–3 weeks
- Bronze cast: dependent on the foundry, generally 12–14 weeks

- Bronze vs Resin: Each material has its own benefits and drawbacks:

- Bronze is the standard in fine art casting. It’s durable, beautiful, has a prestige about it, and will last essentially forever. It’s more reliable for outdoor use than resin, but it is also heavier. The casts are created using the lost wax method, which has been around for over 5,000 years. This process is very time- consuming and labor intensive, which increases the lead time and cost of the final piece. My bronzes are cast in the Portland area by an excellent foundry which does extremely good work.

- Resin casts I make directly from the mold myself, from start to finish. I use a gypsum-based resin composite that is fiberglass reinforced. It’s light, strong, and quicker and less expensive to produce than bronze. The material itself is an off-white color which I dye dark grey, then paint the final piece by hand to resemble a bronze patina. The casts are strong, but the painted surface can be somewhat fragile and easily scratched. Appearance-wise, it’s easy to mistake a resin sculpture for a bronze.

- Patina/paint:

- Bronze can be patinaed in a wide variety of colors. The metal is heated with a torch and various chemicals are sprayed onto the surface, each causing a reaction that creates a different color. The process is an art in itself, and no two pieces are exactly alike.

- Resin is hand-painted to give the appearance of patinaed metal. I paint several layers in different colors, which gives the piece depth and highlights the texture of the surface. Color options are nearly limitless.