PB Cohen Creations

I'm in the Ann Arbor Art Center's new marketing video. It's up on YouTube, look for me at 46 seconds.

I had just added the first sprue to my carved wax ring when the camera guys came around — one of seven sprues, plus a vent. On the other hand, the bird (from the previous entry) only took one sprue, and no vents. Easy peasy.

I like to encourage students to make more than one of anything. That way, if the first one, or two, or more, get melted or ruined beyond repair, the next one or two or three are bound to work out. For example, I'm convinced the best way to learn to solder small things is to make a chain — you WILL melt some jump rings, but by the end of the chain you'll be pretty good at it.

I have to keep reminding myself of this philosophy when I think about that bird. It took countless hours to carve. No, literally: countless hours (but at least I managed to salvage it from the mistakes I was making at the beginning of the carving process). Will it cast well? Will I like it when it's in silver? Will I want to change everything about it? Although it seemed simple enough to sprue, will it take me just as long to carve another one?

I should have those first three questions answered after I cast the waxes tomorrow (Thursday) night. The last one I can answer right now, since I'm already making more: almost as long. But theoretically, I'll get faster at it. Eventually. Once I get better at carving sculptural pieces, in three dimensions. The ring took awhile to carve, too, but it didn't seem to take as long as the bird. I'm sure I'll do more of those.

I have some more "before" pictures, plus a few on my iPhone with everything sprued (taken in a dark-ish studio, so we'll see if they're worth anything), so I'll post them all when I get the "after" pictures.