Flower Child by Richard Arfsten
This piece has a back story that kind of shows how my brain works and where my ideas come from. I started out making a piece called "Honest Bob, the Used Car Sales Man." It is a very good likeness of someone I have dealt with. He would say "It was a little old lady's car and only driven on Sundays to go to church." I depicted him with horns and it was fun to make.
I was making molds with resin bonded sand. This is a sand that sets up very fast and gets sort of like concrete. The usual way to make this mold is to have a 1/4" space between the front and back for the metal to go into. I thought what if I ram the sand without any space between the front and back and just carve out certain areas so it would look like a lace face. Lace was very difficult to do so I thought, "what if I made flowers?" Voila the Flower Child was born.
This can only happen if the sculptor is also a founder. No art foundry would ever change the initial design. In my case I always like to ask "What if?" It costs some money to play "what if" so most sculptors only do things the tried and true normal way so they get expected results. In my art I am a gambler and enjoy playing with process as much as modeling clay or carving.
The back side of the piece has the flowers I carved in the mold. The sculpture is two different designs in the same piece. I have never seen anything like this before or since. I sold it at an art fair many years ago.
I was making molds with resin bonded sand. This is a sand that sets up very fast and gets sort of like concrete. The usual way to make this mold is to have a 1/4" space between the front and back for the metal to go into. I thought what if I ram the sand without any space between the front and back and just carve out certain areas so it would look like a lace face. Lace was very difficult to do so I thought, "what if I made flowers?" Voila the Flower Child was born.
This can only happen if the sculptor is also a founder. No art foundry would ever change the initial design. In my case I always like to ask "What if?" It costs some money to play "what if" so most sculptors only do things the tried and true normal way so they get expected results. In my art I am a gambler and enjoy playing with process as much as modeling clay or carving.
The back side of the piece has the flowers I carved in the mold. The sculpture is two different designs in the same piece. I have never seen anything like this before or since. I sold it at an art fair many years ago.