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DAVID MIKITKA, SCULPTOR
Contemporary Art for Home and Garden
MAKING WOMAN ASUNDER
I utilize several methods when creating my sculptures, often combining techniques to achieve a desired result. Making Woman Asunder was reasonably straightforward and this project is fairly typical of my free casting technique using a lost wax method of fabrication. The following photos outline the numerous steps involved.
I began by tracing an outline of my wife on a piece of craft paper. Working on a large piece in a horizontal position is disorienting at times and utilizing a template helped keep me from losing perspective, proportion and symmetry while building a wax model. It also helped make sure I got all anatomic points in the correct position.
This shows the wax build in progress. At this point, I was fairy done making the left knee and leg.
When finished, I stood the wax up so I could see it from a distance. Though not perfectly symmetric, I knew I would be slicing large chunks out so I didn't need to make any corrections at this point.
I modified my work table by mounting a reciprocating saw underneath and used a customized blade extending vertically to make an upside down "scroll saw".
Having started by building my wax on a piece of plywood, I was able to maneuver the entire thing on my "scroll saw" to slice out portions in a way that would allow a single zig-zag path from bottom to top.
I covered the wax with a layer of refractory plaster strengthened with a scaffold of welded rebar. The rebar would keep everything aligned if the mold were to crack during casting and also act as attachment points for lifting and tilting. At this point, the total weight of the wax and mold was near 250 lbs.
The next step was to remove the wax, hence the term lost wax casting. I used heat guns to melt and collect the wax to be reused on future projects. This process took around five hours.
This is a homemade forge I designed myself. There is a graphite crucible inside capable of managing around a quart of aluminum at a time. The forge utilizes a propane burner which I also fabricated myself. Here, I am melting scrap aluminum obtained from a metal recycling yard.
Because the graphite crucible would only allow about a quart of melt at a time, Woman Asunder required thirteen batches of molten aluminum to complete. This is the mold after three or four pours. My technique involved lifting and rotating the mold after each pour to get the material to flow and fill correctly. Because at this point the whole thing weighed nearly 300 lb., I used a hydraulic crane to lift, tilt, and support the mold for the next batch. The casting process for this sculpture took upwards of six long and very hot hours.
The final steps involved removing the refractory plaster, cutting off flash and excess aluminum, beveling the back angles, cleaning, texturing and sealing and finally, fabricating and mounting it to a support base.
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