A DAY FOR ART

I have written about Bronzesmith before but yesterday SWMBO and the BRD and I all visited it together as they were holding an open house.  It is a full service art foundry and the work it turns out is exceptional.

I am partial to ravens but this next piece was one of my favorites.

The mystery behind that (supposedly) unsupported hand stopped me in my tracks.

I shot this picture with people in it so you could see the scale of some of the works on display.

Inside we were given an informational tour and watched some of the work going on.  This is a patina artist, who explained that the hotter the metal becomes the darker the colors.

I'm not sure if these are a pair of his shoes or someone else's.

Lost wax molds.

A very muscular fellow working around temperatures that rise into the thousands of degrees.

The extremely remarkable Deb Gessner who takes a one-dimensional sketch and turns it into a three-dimensional sculpture. You may remember her working with artist Bob "Boze" Bell to create the sculpture from his portrait of the "Not-So-Gentle Tamer" that now stands as a 10-foot bronze near the Prescott Valley Town Hall.  At present she's working on another of his works, this time of Billy the Kid.

A few well-formed bronze hands, waiting for future work.

And some smaller finished works in the gallery.

This state is full of Western and Native American artists so many of the works reflect that heritage.

But not all.

This was done from a sketch by the noted cartoonist Bil Keane, based on characters from his long-running Family Circus.  But after his death his children worked with Ms. Gessman to create the sketch in bronze but altered to show the face of the dad as Keane himself. The 9-foot-long finished bronze is on display in Scottsdale, where Keane made his home.

As we completed our tour, I spotted one of the other attendees leaving with a purchase she had made.  

Apparently she likes ravens too.

Should you find yourself in Prescott Valley, Arizona, Bronzesmith is open for tours every Thursday at 10 a.m. for $10.  You must call ahead to make reservations.