Lewis Bryden will discuss the making of "Nature as Muse"
Artist and sculptor Lewis Bryden will give a talk at 7 pm on Wednesday, July 24 on the making of his bronze sculpture, “Nature as Muse,” which is a permanent installation in the Mallinckrodt Garden at View. The talk will be held in Gould Hall at View, where Bryden will present a series of short videos that show the different stages of making this sculpture. There is no admission charge to attend the talk.
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| "Nature as Muse" Bronze sculpture by Lewis Bryden in Mallinckrodt Garden at View |
Bryden, who has been a
professional artist for 30 years, used a process called “lost wax casting” to
create “Nature as Muse.”
“I chose the lost wax method,
in which the finished clay sculpture is remolded in wax, coated with ceramic
material, and then poured with molten bronze. Everywhere the wax was, the
bronze now takes its place,” he said.
Bryden created the full-size clay
sculpture and then collaborated with other artisans to create the bronze cast.
The process is complicated and can permanently destroy the sculpture if
anything goes wrong.
“[The process] involves many
steps of repeated creation, destruction and recreation all of which are
beautiful in themselves,” he said. “The process is, in a way, a perfect example
of the need for communal effort and mutual trust.”
The videos that Bryden will
show demonstrate the lost wax process and highlight the skills involved in
creating such a large sculpture.
As part of the creative process,
Bryden created a maquette, or small scale model of the sculpture, which is of a
young girl reaching up to a bird. “It helps the artist and others to visualize
the sculpture and to identify problems early,” he said. He also did a
portrait study as an exercise to explore the character of the young girl.
The portrait has been donated
to View’s permanent collection, and the maquette has been given to View as a
raffle to raise money for View. Both the portrait and the maquette will be on
display before the talk and raffle tickets will be available for purchase.
Bryden is well-known as a
landscape painter, but in the last three years he has turned his attention to
three-dimensional work in marble and bronze.
“Nature as Muse” was a gift to View last summer by Bryden and his wife
Betsy Mallinckrodt Bryden to commemorate the lives of Betsy’s grandparents,
Elizabeth Elliot and Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr., who were longtime summer
residents of Old Forge and avid art collectors.
--By Leslie Bailey, View staff
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