the bronze casting

To make this piece I had to go back to Spain, the installations here in Sweden were too small to make this

The process of bronze casting a piece like this is quite long, first of all, I had to make a plaster cast of a ball, then in two pieces, make with it the two sides of the ball with wax, as it's empty on the inside, I had to do it aplying thin layers of wax. Once I had the teo sides of the wax ball, with a hot iron I started making the different holes on it, and refining the borders.

Once the ball was ready on itself, I had to add a lot of wax pipes which will be used later to let the molten bronze in, I also had to add some air exits. When the pipes are ready, the whole wax piece goes inside a block of plaster mixed with brick powder, and when it has dried, it's placed inside a hoven. Then, all the wax melts and goes away, leaving a block which has inside the shape the piece and the pipes had.

That leads to the video, the block is placed in sand, because if something goes gronw it could explode, then, with the bronze molten at 1200 Cº, we pour it inside the pipes, as the video shows, I also worked on this, the first two blocks contain this piece. When the bronze has cooled down, the plaster block is destroyed, and if everything goes well (which is not so common), the piece is almost finished, there is only left removing the pipes, as the first two pictures show, and then polishing it

I think it's quite funny, how this piece, which is about my own identity, is the project where I recieved most help in my artistic life, I had the colaboration of three teachers and the help of a lot of friends in order to finish it and be able to bring it to Sweden on time...I believe, that this process and how I was helped really suits the piece.