My current project! For Blinn College in Brenham, Texas.

I have been commissioned by Blinn College to sculpt a ten-foot tall steel sculpture to be placed in front of the Blinn Band Hall. Working with the Music Department, especially Larry Campbell, the Music Director there for many years, I designed a contemporary form that says music... and if all goes well it will also make music!

What you are looking at is the maquette for this project, a tin miniature.

The shiny windy silvery part will be made to be like keys, that can be struck to make different "notes." Construction is to begin very soon on this, the first sculpture for that campus!

The moment of truth... final maquette of young Marshal Frank Hamer

These are photographs showing the progress from the model and the drawing concept to the final proposal of my Marshal Frank Hamer monument. If all goes well the City of Navasota will approve of the design and I will get started on the life-sized sculpture to be placed in front of the new City Hall. I'm getting pretty excited. This sculpture will also be cast in bronze, for anybody interested in a two footer, of one of the greatest Texas Rangers of all!

Perhaps the hardest thing in the beginning was to find a model... somebody to BE the famous Texas Ranger and Navasota City Marshal Frank Hamer for me, so I could get the concept rolling. Hamer was every bit of six foot three inches... This former Navy SEAL graciously posed for me, and I knew the rest would be easy. Thank you J_. M_.! In a big way, this sculpture is a tribute to all the brave men and women who make the world a safer place for us as Americans.

I started the proposal with one of artist Payne Lara's new armatures, now on the market, and WOW what a great product it is. Payne is a highly recognized and sought after Western and wildlife sculptor here in Navasota, and has used his vast experience in creating bronze sculptures to design these commercial armatures for the sculpture profession. He has thought of every possible requirement for a sculptor to get a sound start on sculpting a human form, in several different sizes. This armature saves the professional artist days of prep work. Yet if he cannot sculpt, it gives him no unfair advantage.

As you can see, when the actual clay form is created, there is no longer any trace of the armature. Here young Frank comes to life... without all the accessories of a Western lawman...

Now armed and ready, topped with his big hat, Marshal Frank Hamer steps out of history into the art world, ready for the City monument committee to see him.

When a maquette design is approved, I will go to one of my favorite places, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame in Waco to see if they have any artifacts there to help make this sculpture as authnetic as possible. That ought to make a great blog!

the process of creating public art

When you stroll past a sculpture in the park, and you wonder how it came to be, you might look at it for a second and then shrug your shoulders. Because no matter what you think of it, it is there. And it is there for a long time... maybe forever. The following pictures illustrate one such project, that will probably not reside forever in its present home, but was certainly designed so it could be.

A major airport retailing company contacted me several years ago, looking for someone to paint a mural around a stuffed longhorn head, which would be mounted in front of a Stelzigs store at the Terminal D in Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport. After some discussion, and vainly shopping around for a champion longhorn head, they agreed to let me just sculpt a semi-dimensional longhorn that would be attached to the wall.

First I sent them several drawings, proposing different poses. The one above was their choice.

Then they asked for a sketch of an overhead elevation, that would show just how much the head would stick out from the wall. There were concerns about its accessibilty to passers-by.

After the design was approved, I welded up a steel armature. Every time I get a commission like this, I head out to my favorite place, Torres Wrecking Yard. I find and recycle steel elements that will work to make a super strong substructure.

Then epoxy putty is mixed and applied to the wire mesh on the armature. A thickness of about a half to three-quarters of an inch is plenty to establish a near indestructible sculpture, safe and durable for ages.

On this project, I made the final details on my front porch.

On delivery day, "Bevo" was loaded up on a lowboy trailer and towed to the Airport, where he was rolled in on a custom welded dolly.