How The Art of Lost Wax Casting Changed The Way I (and others) Look At The World

Curse you, Teacher Bitch, for teaching me how to cast natural objects and never look at the world in the same way again. I can't even take a walk anymore without looking at every little leaf, plant, flower or feather and thinking, "I could cast that!" I even walked through the Asian market one day, on a mission, for what I didn't know at the time but a little package of dried herbs jumped out at me. So I cast these Star Anise....

I need to clean them up and make them in to something....along with so many other things I've started and abandoned.

CAST PISTACHIOS, fresh out of the flask.

The casting bug has even bitten my kids. My eight year old daughter, Sydney, chimes in while walking and exploring, "Mommy, can we cast this?" Yesterday, Mellow Bitch handed my kids some gum. river, my four year old son, handed the wrapper back to Mellow. She asked him, "What do you want me to do with this?", to which he claimed, "You can cast it!" Awesome.

A bracelet cast from a piece of lace

It's an obsession. First, the idea, the discussion, the pondering. Then the actual "spruing"...waxing up the original piece that will be lost in the process, to get it ready to put it in the investment and then the heating and pouring of the metal. I don't know why what holds the object in place when casting is called investment, but it seems fitting. This endeavor certainly is an investment. The time, the energy, the sweat (those torches are HOT), the object that is ultimately sacrificed....it all adds up to an investment. And, well, I can't go this route of thinking and not mention the price of metals....silver is hovering around $40 an ounce. And gold....I won't even go there. It is an investment but I will stop myself before I say it's a commitment, because although one would like to commit to something that takes so much it is easy to make the decision to melt the metal again and transform it into something completely different.

A natural casting of Mellow Bitch's

We all get a little obsessed. One day when I was eating a Fruit Roll Up I thought, hmmm, I bet I can sculpt something with a roll up and cast it! Some day I'll try it.....

There is a world of possibilities. The most meaningful casting I've done so far is my husband's wedding ring. I carved it from wax - layers of sheet wax to be exact. I was so intimidated and finally Teacher Bitch coaxed me to do it. I like how it turned out. It's a little rough around the edges, but strong...kind of like the man who wears it.

The carved wax ring

Fresh from the flask

The finished mountain ring (minus the patina)

Another mountain view

Society Nights

Contemporary Fine Art Jewelry Society of Salt Lake City

Society Nights - Wednesday nights. Teacher Bitch at the helm once again.

Here we are again...or still. Class hasn't stopped except for a two week break but I haven't written due to computer and general blogging illiteracy issues. But I think I've got it figured out now. This is not really a class but rather a gathering. We are here to promote the fine art of silversmithing in Utah. No glue guns or cricut cutters here. Nope, we're Bitches.....with hammers.

So much has happened since my last/first post. I've met so many more Bitches! We started with four but we're up to nine now and I'm finding it hard to give everyone bitch names that fit. Persnickety Bitch is one, she actually named herself. She's sweet and seems pretty even keeled to me but that girl melted pennies the first time we met. Beware when walking past her bench when she's got the torch fired up. If pennies melted just think of the hair loss that could occur... Just kidding, really. Persnickety Bitch really is skilled at wielding a torch. Teacher Bitch was concerned melting pennies was probably a capital offense but upon closer inspection she came to the conclusion that those pennies couldn't have been pure copper..... Perhaps Persnickety Bitch has got something on the federal mint...

Next is I Hate You Bitch. Yep, I gave her that name. Why, you ask? Well, this Bitch just started metalsmithing and has already made more in the past two months than I have in the past year. She's got one class under her belt but take one peek in her tool box and you'd think she she's been doing this years. She's already got a shop set up in her kitchen and shows up at class each week with at least two new projects she just whipped together during the week. I don't really hate her...I just hate that I'm not producing as much as she is. This is I Hate You Bitch's bear claw in the making......

Bird Bitch. I first met Bird Bitch a couple years ago. The teacher in that class had encouraged us to bring in past projects and Bird Bitch brought in pieces that she had made in a class she took in Mexico. We were all pretty blown away. This girl's got talent. Design, fabrication, innovation...T.A.L.E.N.T. So where does the name come from? She showed up in this current class with a pheasant's foot that she had cast in silver and is going to make into a bracelet. Very cool. That was day one. Yesterday she came to class with a show box filled with bird skulls. One of them was for Teacher Bitch. Gone are the days when you bring an apple for Teacher. I can't wait to see what comes of the bird bones....Here are a couple of Bird Bitch's works in progress - a forged copper and turquoise cuff and a pendant with water cast droplets...

cynical bitches with hammers....and FIRE

I like to think of this little group of ours as a Jewelry Making Self Help Group. Twice a week, in a small jewelry studio in the middle of Salt Lake City, we bitches get together for our jewelry making class and beat metal into submission with some enviable hammers. Lately the submission has happened under the force of fire - 3 torches on a "Crucible full of sins" as one of the bitches so eloquently put it. To the lay person, that would be a ceramic container you melt scrap in - this container happened to be filled with years worth of silver scrap that was never properly stored and was thrown in any old container or bin that happened to be open at the time. It was a "bitch" to sort through it all, to say the least. The sin part comes from the fact that this particular bitch doesn't care much for instructions and just kept cutting and working the silver till something was successful. Please note that the bitch who called my pile of scrap a pile of sins (and who dutifully follows directions so as not to make mistakes) didn't have enough scrap to use for her casting while this bitch had over a pound and a half to torch into silver lava. Ha! But I digress.
   I give her a hard time, but to be honest, the "Sinful" bitch I speak of has leant me her ear and her own fabulous workshop over the past year since we met which allowed for some much needed steam letting, not to mention hammering.....and FIRE. I couldn't ask for a better friend to bitch and hammer with.
   My cousin, whom I shall call Mellow Bitch, is just that... mellow. It takes a lot for her to get fired up, which is why I think this little Jewelry Making Self Help Group is a good outlet for her. She can remain silent while methodically hammering away at a helpless little piece of silver, working out the day's kinks from babysitting my crazy kids all day. The silence works for her, as she has turned out some pretty fantastic pieces.
   And last but not least, we have Teacher Bitch. She's not really a bitch at all but she introduced me to Fretz Hammers and forever will remain the bitch of all bitches among pretty and powerful little hammers in my book. Teacher Bitch is a true artist who challenges her students in the sweetest but most convincing ways. Her work is a wonder to behold.
   We four have been dutifully meeting at this workshop twice a week for the past couple of months with Teacher Bitch at the helm. We've talked about design, experimented with enameling, and been introduced to natural object casting. We even took our class to the Beer Hive one frosty evening when temps in the the workshop reached no higher than 52* despite the torches and kilns going at full blast. Teacher Bitch made good use of the time at the Beer Hive, giving us a lesson on casting while we sipped some good stouts and IPA's and French onion soup.

   Casting. What an experience. The first time down that road with 3 fiercely hot torches and tanks the size of a sixth grader I have to admit I was shaking in my boots. Slowly the fear turned to a feeling of empowerment, a cleansing of sorts, as the crucible full of sins turned a fiery orange and succumbed to the heat, turning to a liquid ball of molten silver with the fire purifying the mistakes of projects long forgotten in that big heap of scrap.

   The feeling of empowerment increased as we three bitches worked as a team, each holding our torches over the crucible as Teacher Bitch carried it to the flask to pour into the investment to form our first artistic attempts in this medium. There has to be total trust during this operation - trust in your friends and fellow bitches, trust in the tools and your own hands and trust in fear. Because it's the fear of the fire and the molten silver that keeps things under control.

Fire!

Quenching...Hot, volcanic eruptions going on in that water!

A successful cast of a little cactus flower

Sinful Bitch's hydrangea cast - Beautiful!



Mellow Bitch's spiny, prickly stick cast. we're trying to convince
her to make a very threatening ring with this....



A whole lot of successful casts....from a whole lot of cleansed sins



   I've got a passion for this stuff...for the alchemy of metalsmithing...and for the friendships it forges....   



Crucible full of sins