Sogata

Sogata is a Japanese process of creating cast metal vessels commonly used in tea ceremonies, but is also a hands on and renewable process of mold making that is attractive to the modern day metal caster.  See the link below for a step by step process of how to do your own sogata!

Sogata Step by Step

Environmental Foundry Gallery Show

Renée Vogelle, Godless Shrine, Bronze

Stephen Rooney, Structure, Bronze

Stephen Rooney, Horns, Bronze

Becca Flis, Homage to Mother Nature, Bronze

Renée Vogelle, Sogata Vessel, Bronze

Check out the Environmental Foundry Show details!

Dung Molds

This dung and clay mold process has it's origins rooted in ancient Africa. Below are some pictures of the process and final products of using this process! At the very bottom of the page is  link to a step by step visual guide to using this method of mold making. 

A Step by Step to the Dung and Clay Method of Mold Making

The Artifact: Environmental Foundry Processes

The Artifact 

My idea of what an artifact is comes from the Oxford English Dictionary definition of "artifact" which is described as "an object made or modified by human workmanship, as opposed to one formed by natural processes" or "an excavated object that shows characteristic signs of human workmanship or use." For the purposes of the assignment I chose to define an artifact as anything with human influence. If a human has made it, altered it, picked it up and used it for a specific purpose, it’s an artifact in line with my personal definition of the word. 

For the artifact assignment I chose to focus on using the hand in order to produce forms that allude to function. I am interested in the idea of excavating an object and not knowing exactly was it was used for, but finding clues of it’s function by looking at its different aspects. If 1,000 years from now my artifacts were found, what kind of function could they imply? How can I make something that looks like it might be used for a certain purpose, but also have ambiguity to any such purpose? In addition to this, I am also interested in the process of making and how I can reference that process in the final form. By using the hand(s) as a basis for my artifacts I’m leaving an imprint of the wax process of making in the final metal cast. The dung and clay method of molding is very supportive of the reference to the hand, since it is such an involved process. The steps of sifting the dung, mixing the different layers of the mold and then layering them onto my wax pattern is so integral to my interest in the hand and how the hand is involved in the making process. 

I enjoy the dung and clay mold process. It’s relaxing and it’s a lot different in doing a shell or sand mold. There is a variable of time that you have to account for. Different molds take a different drying time and you have to know by feel when you should add the next layer and whether it’s to wet or too dry. I’ve been having a lot of cracking happening during the final drying out of the mold and I think this is because I’ve been going to fast in adding the next layer to my molds. Since some of my molds cracked, I’ve also had a lot of flash in and I even had a mold bust open and let all of the molten bronze out of it before it could cool. This was upsetting, but I may have been pushing the limits of the dung mold process because this mold was almost as large as a football, albeit a hollow form. 

The Research 

I did research on some different types of artifacts and I was most interested in Native American and Viking tools and ceremonial objects. I thought that these provided the most interesting forms that didn't necessarily connect completely to their main function. I sketched my favorite forms here: 

The Process 

To make the wax version of the artifact I used warm wax, that was the consistency of silly putty, and molded the wax around different parts of my hands/arms. For my largest mold, I pressed the wax around my hand to create a sort of pouring container. For the smaller molds I used the tip of my fingers to create a recess into the wax form. After the pieces were sprued, vented and attached to a cup, the layers of dung and clay mixture were added.  

The imprint of my hand was on the interior of the form.
The wax was pressed onto the top and sides of my hand.  

The wax that was molded over my hand.
This is the outside of the form. 

Once the dung molds were finished being layered, they were left to dry out until the melt out kiln. The melt out charcoal kiln was also a very cool process. I never imagined that this kiln could be set up so easily. You could do this whole process in your backyard if you wanted to. I was very surprised that there was so much smoke from the kiln. I’m unsure if this was due to the moisture still left in the molds, the burning of the charcoal or the melting wax catching on fire. Or maybe it was a combination of all three of these. After the molds are cast and cooled for a few hours they can be carefully broken open. The pieces of used mold can be crushed and recycled by sieving it through the different sized sieves. 

The charcoal wax melt out kiln.
Larger molds are placed in the back to maximize efficiency. 

These small forms were the wax forms
molded around my fingertips. They cast
extremely well. No vents were needed because
the clay/dung molds are fairly porous after the dung
is burned away in the melt out process. 

This was the form that was molded around my
 hand. It was the largest mold I tried to do.
It broke open before the molten bronze could
completely cool, so it only cast half-way. 

In the remainder of the semester, when the weather gets a little better, I would like to try making a kiln out of the dung/clay paste and see if this perhaps might keep more heat in. I am excited to see what I can make next. I would like to try making small intricate pieces, perhaps jewelry items, using swirls and twists of wax like the ancient Africans did using beeswax to make bronze jewelry. 

An example of an intricate ancient African pendent.
I would like to attempt some of these
forms in the near future. 

Ancient African method of bronze casting: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wax/hd_wax.htm 

The Vessel 

The ancient Japanese method of sogata clay molding is very difficult for me. I didn’t really know what I was doing half of the time and I wasn’t sure if I was doing something wrong and if I was I had no idea how to fix it. But finally I got the first half of the piece mold finished. What I’ve learned is that you need the clay to be the right consistency when working with it because if it’s too wet it will all just gather at the bottom of your mold and if it’s too dry it won’t stick to your previous layer. But the water content in the mold mixture also depends on which layer you are working on. For the coarser material wetter might be better so it will stick to the previous layer, but it’s difficult to defy gravity with wetter clay. So if you need to cut back in with your mold you need to do that layer in parts so the clay that’s cutting back in has a chance to dry so it won’t collapse due to gravity. Also with a form that cuts back in on itself it’s very difficult to fit your hand into the flask to put on the layers of clay. You really just end up always hitting part of the clay you’ve already smoothed over. I’ve definitely learned to make patterns that do not cut back in on themselves because it was so frustrating doing that type of pattern for the first time doing a sogata mold.  

The finished first half of the sogata mold. 

The workstation set up of the sogata molding process. 

Patination 

I haven’t had much of a chance to patina metal in past projects, but I am excited to experiment with different color patinas. I would like to produce/find a patina that makes bronze look aged (say for 1,000 years) and I would also like to look for patinas that are brightly colored. For patination I am most interested in finding “natural” patinas that do not necessarily involve super toxic chemicals that I may not be able to get my hands on in the future when I’m on my own. The other reason I’m interested in natural patinas is because I don’t necessarily like to work with toxic chemicals and since the sogata and the dung and clay molding processes are natural processes without any toxic chemicals I think it would be good to use natural patinas. 

Artifact Research: Monuments/Statues

Monument/Statue Research:

The main focus of my research for the 'Artifacts' portion of Environmental Foundry is on monuments and their meaning.  I'm very interested in the different purposes for monuments and how their aesthetic correlates with their meaning. The first three monuments that I've created all have different purposes: worship, the representation of a historical event (ambiguous), and remembrance of the dead. The goal that I want to achieve with making these artifacts is to make them appear a lot larger than their actual size.  To do this I will take photos of the finished artifacts, bring them into photoshop and appropriate people or wildlife near them to exaggerate size. 

Sketches for the three statues:

North Korean 'eternal president' statues (historical/worship)

- Here are multiple examples of different statues used for different purposes.  

-Kim Jong-il bronze statue 

-A tribute to Kim Jong-il, reportedly penned by the state-run Korean Central News Agency after his death, hailed the North Korean leader's "threadbare and discolored" parka as a "symbol of revolution".

- Looking at this photo of the famous Korean Leader, it makes me think about how people stand and act in front of certain statues.    Typically for worship people face the front of the figure or front face of the statue.  Also the placement of different statues can change the context completely.

Lao Tse Statue

- "In Taoism, to embrace the totality while doing an everyday mundane task means you never leave the totality regardless of the action you might undertake. This is the principle of shou-yi, which is extremely difficult to do."

Example of photo manipulation: In a previous assignment I had fooled around with size alterations on photoshop and tried to push the limits of how believable I could make my hand sculptures.

Original photo of landscape at SAW

Photo of cast iron hand

Finished photo manipulation

Developing Environmental Molds:

First layer of dung mixture

Final Layer with coarse grog

After the kiln has been set up, the molds are placed inside with gaps underneath to allow the wax to melt out the bottom.  Charcoal is placed around the molds built up to the roof of the kiln then kiln shelves are placed on top to keep the heat trapped inside.

Kiln reaching max temperature without blower.

After the molds are heated up to the right temperature so that they are glowing red, they are ready to be poured.

Finished molds before cracking them out.

Surfaces: Ancient and Contemporary

    It’s easy to dismiss traditional methods of metalworking as primitive and crude in light of the incredible advances in materials processing techniques both on the industrial scale and at the level of the humble craftsman.  However, now that environmental consciousness, reduction of the use of harmful chemicals, materials recycling, and other altruistic values have become fashionable, the methods of the ancient metal caster have once again become contemporary.  The use of clay over resin bonded sand and natural oils and solutions over complex chemistries now give these methods an advantage over what was considered to be “advanced” techniques.  My focus for this course is to investigate and experiment with methods of surface treatment and patination of cast metals used by ancient craftsmen and try to integrate those techniques into my own work.

    The patterns I designed for myself are geometrically simple so I can focus on the surface of each piece.  I molded two patterns out of wax and molded each in dung and clay.  They were both cast in bronze.

Bronzes from Dung Molds

  

    In keeping with attempts to use both contemporary and contemporary methods of making, I used 3D modeling (Rhinoceros 3.0) to design a sweep for the Japanese Sogata technique of making vessels.  I enjoy the idea of using such a technologically sophisticated technique and traditional mode of making in tandem.

Sogata Mold and Rendering

    

    My research into surface techniques has been fruitful.  Not many sources look at surface treatment and patination of metals with a historical perspective, but I was able to get my hands on a copy of “Metal Plating and Patination: Cultural, Technical, and Historical Developments”.  The title says it all really.  This is a must have book for anyone looking to do serious research on the topic, or a very good place to jump off from.  From the articles in the text I was able to come to some broad conclusions regarding the nature of surface treatment in ancient times.  The following is a dilution of the information I was able to glean from the above book.

1.   Metals were not often patinated deliberately in pre-classical times: By this I mean that the method of patination we are accustomed to today, with application of solutions that quickly alter to color of the metal, were not in use.  The Romans were quite fond of polished bronze as a finish, though were well aware of the tendency of bronze to acquire a different color and surface with time.  Many of the first hand accounts of techniques of the time come from Pliny the Elder, who details some techniques for protecting the surface of bronze.  In western culture, it was only during the Renaissance that patination became a standard, and that was simply to imitate the state of Greek and Roman bronzes rather than to innovate new colorations.  At that time, and long before, the natural color of bronze was considered to be black, so it was a very popular surface to emulate. 
2. Patinas were influenced primarily by metal chemistry, and not surface treatments: This detail was quite shocking for me to learn, as it seems counterintuitive, but realizing that the production of alloys in the first place was a craft lends credence to this.  Nowadays, we buy industrially produced alloys, which, by nature of the industrial system, limits what is available to us.  Ancient metal casters suffered no such restriction, and could pay for and request certain alloys to achieve the results they desired over time.  Silver and gold were popular additions to copper alloys, as they would cause a purple-black patina to occur with the right chemistry.  This is especially true with the Japanese, who pioneered still famous alloys like shakudo (a copper alloy with gold additions) and shibuichi (a copper alloy with up to 25% silver added).  This brings me to my next point…
3.  Of all known cultures, the Japanese have the most prolific and well documented tradition in the coloring of metals: The pure range of colors they were able to achieve by changing the alloy chemistry is amazing and, counter to my comment earlier, they pioneered chemical surface treatments of all kinds.  These techniques are still in use and produce rather stunning results.

    My intention from this point forth is test select treatments from disparate cultures and document the results and the ingredients used.  My creation process will be designed so that mass production is possible and I can move to the metal finishing process quickly.  The next form up in line is a rams horn, which I'll take a mold of and make as many as I can.  Stay tuned for more!

Sculpture Foundry Booklist

FURTHER   RESEARCH   FOR   SCULPTURE   FOUNDRY

Foundry Arts

*Fine Art Metal Casting: An Illustrated Guide to Mould Making and Lost Wax Processes by Richard Rome and Hamish Young

*Bronze Sculpture Casting & Patination: Mud Fire Metal by Steve Hurst, Steve Russell

*Metal Casting: Appropriate Technology in the Small Foundry by Steve Hurst

*Metalcasting by C. W. Ammen

*The Complete Handbook of Sand Casting by C. W. Ammen

Casting Aluminum by C.W. Ammen

Casting Iron by C. W. Ammen

*Hot Metal by Wayne Potratz, University of Minnesota

Building a Gas Fired Crucible Furnace by David J. Gingery

Iron Melting Cupola Furnaces for the Small Foundry by Stephen D. Chastain

Build an Oil Fired Tilting Furnace (The Small foundry series) by Steve Chastain and Stephen D. Chastain

Metal Casting: A Sand Casting Manual for the Small Foundry, Volume 1 by Stephen D. Chastain

Metal Casting: A Sand Casting Manual for the Small Foundry, Volume 2 by Steve Chastain and Stephen D.Chastain

The Backyard Foundry (Workshop Practice Series, No. 25) by B. Terry Aspin

Gas Burners for Forges, Furnaces, and Kilns by Michael Porter

Charcoal Foundry (Build Your Own Metal Working Shop from Scrap Book 1) by David J. Gingery

Castings, Second Edition (Castings) by John Campbell

Foundry Manual by United States Navy

Foundry Technology, Second Edition by Peter Beeley

SECRETS OF GREEN-SAND CASTING

Out of the Fiery Furnace: Casting Sculpture from Ceramic Shell Molds by Howard Hitchcock

*Lost-Wax Casting: Old, New, and Inexpensive Methods by Fred R. Sias, Jr., PhD

Bronze Casting: A Manual of Techniques by Guy Thomas

Foundry Work: A Practical Handbook on Standard Foundry Practice. by Burton Gray + William Stimpson

The Care of Bronze Sculpture: Recommended Maintenance Programs for the Collector by Patrick V. Kipper

Mold Making, Casting and Patina by Bruner F. Barrie

Color on Metal: 50 Artists Share Insights and Techniques by Tim McCreight and Nicole Bsullak

Patinas for Silicon Bronze by Patrick V. Kipper

Japanese Patinas by Eitoku Sugimori

The Colouring, Bronzing and Patination of Metals...by Richard Hughes

*Bronze Patination by Ron young

Anthony Caro: Bronze Sculpture November 20 - December 31, 1980

Joan Miro: The last Bronze Sculptures 1981-1983. by Gerald Peters Gallery

Isamu Noguchi: Bronze and Iron Sculpture : May 13-June 11, 1988 by Isamu Noguchi

Degas Sculptures: Catalogue Raisonné of the Bronzes by Joseph S. Czestochowski and Anne Pingeot

Extending The Artist's Hand: Contemporary Sculpture from The Walla Walla Foundry. by Anderson, Bruce, Keith Wells + Jim Dine

Metal Casting History

*Out of the Fiery Furnace: The Impact of Metals on the History of Mankind by Robert Raymond

A History of the Precious Metals from the Earliest Times to the Present by Alexander Del Mar

*The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy by Mircea Eliade

Cast-Iron Architecture in America: The Significance of James Bogardus (Norton Books) by Margot and Carol Gayle

Ancient Chinese Bronze Art: Casting the Precious Sacral Vessel by William Thomas Chase and Jung May Lee

Benin, a Kingdom in Bronze: The Royal Court Art

Bronzes: Sculptors and Founders, 1800-1930 by Harold Berman

Bronzes of the 19th Century: Dictionary of Sculptors (Schiffer Book for Collectors) by Pierre Kjellberg, Kate Loftus & Alison Levie

A Century of American Sculpture: The Roman Bronze Works Foundry by Lucy D. Rosenfeld

Portraits of the Masters: Bronze Sculptures of the Tibetan Buddhist Lineages by Donald Dinwiddie, Ramon N. Prats & others.

The Great Bronze Doors for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels by Miles, Fogelman and Fujinami

Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections:  by Jessica Rawson

Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections (Vol 1) by Robert W. Bagley

Environmental Sculpture + Site

Robert Smithson and the American Landscape (Contemporary Artists and Their Critics) by Ron Graziani

Land & Environmental Art (Themes&Movements) by Jeffrey Kastner and Brian Wallis

Art Nature Dialogues: Interviews With Environmental Artists by John K. Grande (Author), Edward Lucie-Smith

Between Landscape Architecture and Land Art by Udo Weilacher (Author)

Land Art (Taschen) by Michael Lailach and Uta Grosenick

Land Art by Ben Tufnell

Land Art: (hardcover) by Gilles Tiberghien

Land, Art a cultural ecology handbook. by Max Andrews

Land Art: A Complete Guide To Landscape, Environmental, Earthworks, Nature, Sculpture + Installation Art by William Malpas

Land Art: A Complete Guide To Landscape, Environmental, Earthworks, Nature, Sculpture and Installation Art in the UK by William Malpas

Ecological Aesthetics: Art in Environmental Design: Theory and Practice by Heike Strewlow, Herman Prigann, Vera David

One Place after Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity by Miwon Kwon

Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art by Grant H. Kester

The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society by Lucy R. Lippard

On the Beaten Track: Tourism, Art, and Place by Lucy R. Lippard

Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory by Lucy R. Lippard
Markings : Aerial Views of Sacred Landscapes by Charles Gallenkamp, Keith Critchlow, Maria Reiche, and Lucy Lippard

*Earthworks And Beyond: Comtemparary Art In the Landscape by John Beardsley

Earthworks: Art and the Landscape of the Sixties by Suzaan Boettger

Site Specific Art: Performance, Place and Documentation by Nick Kaye

Star Axis: Where the earth meets the sky: a sculpture to observe the stars presently under construction in New Mexico by Charles Ross

Sculpture And the Garden (Subject/Object: New Studies in Sculpture) by Patrick Eyres and Fiona Russell

Sculptures Parks in Europe: A Guide to Art and Nature by Jimena Blázquez Abascal, Valeria Varas, and Raul Rispa

Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art by Erika Suderburg and Editor,Erika Suderburg

Contemporary Outdoor Sculpture by Brooke Barrie

A Guide to the Sculpture Parks and Gardens of America by Jane McCarthy and Laurily K. Epstein

Socrates Sculpture Park by Ivana Mestrovic and Alyson Baker

Sacred Spaces and Other Places: A Guide to Grottos and Sculptural Environments in the Upper Midwest by Lisa Stone and Jim Zanzi

The Power of Place and Human Environments by James Swan Art in Action: Nature, Creativity, and Our Collective Future by Natural World Museum and Achim Steiner. Unmarked : Peggy Phelan

Public Art Dialogues in Public Art by Tom Finkelpearl The Tilted Arc Controversy: Dangerous Precedent? by Harriet F. Senie

Public Art By The Book by Barbara Goldstein

New Land Marks : Public Art, Community, and the Meaning of Place by Penny Balkin Bach

The Art of Placemaking: Interpreting Community Through Public Art and Urban Design by Ronald Lee Fleming

CRITICAL ISSUES PUBLIC ART PB by Senie Hf

Plop: Recent Projects of the Public Art Fund by Susan K. Freedman, Tom Eccles, Dan Cameron, and Katy Siegel

Art and the Public Sphere by W. J. T. Mitchell

City Art: New York's Percent For Art Program by Eleanor Heartney and Adam Gopnik

Cultural Democracy: The Arts, Community, and the Public Purpose by James Bau Graves

Sculpture Overviews

Part Object Part Sculpture by Helen Anne Molesworth

The Sculptural Imagination: Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist by Alex Potts

Modern Sculpture Reader by Jon Wood, Alex Potts, and David Hulks

Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks and Ellen P. Shapiro

The Contingent Object of Contemporary Art by Martha Buskirk

Sculpture in the Age of Doubt (Aesthetics Today) by Thomas McEvilley

High Art Lite: The Rise and Fall of Young British Art, Revised and Expanded Edition by Julian Stallabrass

*A Sculpture Reader: Contemporary Sculpture Since 1980, by Glenn Harper

Conversations on Sculpture (Perspectives on Contemporary Sculpture) by Glenn Harper and Twylene Moyer

*Modern Sculpture: A Concise History (World of Art) by Herbert Read

*Sculpture since 1945 (Oxford History of Art) by Andrew Causey

Sculpture 1900-1945 (Oxford History of Art) by Penelope Curtis

*Passages in Modern Sculpture by Rosalind Krauss

The Sculptural Idea, Fourth Edition by James J.. Kelly

*The Language of Sculpture, With 155 Illustrations by William Tucker

Flesh and the Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of Art History by Alex Potts

Sculpture Today by Judith Collins

Unmonumental: the object in the 21^st Century by Laura Hoptman, Richard Flood, Massimiliano Gioni + Trevor Smith

Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 by Lucy Lippard

Reenchantment of Art by Suzi Gablik

Conversations Before the End of Time by Suzi Gablik

*Shaping Space: The Dynamics of Three-Dimensional Design by Paul Zelanski and Mary Pat Fisher

Sculpture: Contemporary Form and Theory (Art & Design Profile) by Andrew Benjamin

The Grove Book of Art Writing: Brilliant Words on Art from Pliny the Elder to Damien Hirst by Martin Gayford and Karen Wright

Doubletake: Collective Memory and Current Art by Lynne Cooke, Bice Crugier, and Grey Hilty

Installation Art

*Installation Art in the New Millennium: The Empire of the Senses by Nicolas De Oliveira, Nicola Oxley, and Michael Petry

Understanding Installation Art: From Duchamp to Holzer by Mark Rosenthal

Installation Art by Nicolas De Oliveira

Installation Art by Claire Bishop

Blurring The Boundaries by Hugh Davies

From the Center by Lucy R. Lippard

Installation Art In Close-Up (Art in Close-up) by William Malpas

The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art by Mary Anne Staniszewski

Installation & Performance Art: Photographs by Claudio Abate 1960-Now by Achille Bonito Oliva, Sol Lewitt, Gilbert & George, Claudio Abate

Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space by Brian O'Doherty and Thomas McEvilley

*The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

*The Production of Space by Henri Lefebvre

Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience by Yi-Fu Tuan and Steven Hoelscher

Sculpture Process

The Sculpture Reference: Contemporary Techniques, Terms, Tools, Materials And Sculpture by Arthur Williams

*The Materials and Methods of Sculpture by Jack C. Rich

Modeling and Sculpture: A Guide to Traditional Methods by Albert Toft

Sculpture: Principles and Practice by Louis Slobodkin

Encyclopedia of Sculpture Techniques by John Mills

Magazines

Modern Casting

Public Art Review by Forecast Public Art

Cabinet

Sculpture Magazine, by International Sculpture Centre

The Crucible by Castle Fine Arts, UK

Sculptural Pursuit

Sculpture Journal

Object

Object - UK

World Sculpture News

Espace

Frieze

Flash Art International

Art in America

Artnet Insider's guide to the art market with daily news, reviews & features.

ID International Design Magazine