"A Subtlety" is the large-scale sugar-coated sculpture by American artist Kara Walker. The sculpture features a sphinx-like black woman, 35 feet high and 75 feet long in Brooklyn’s legendary Domino Sugar Factory.
A Subtlety was dominated by the sphinx, but also included fifteen other sculptures. These Banana Boys, as they were called, were 60-inches-tall and weigh 300-500 pounds a piece. Five were made of solid sugar. The other ten were first built from sugar as well. However, they collapsed under the heat, and were replaced with versions made of resin and coated in a layer of molasses, made by Sculpture House Casting.
Photography: Jason Wyche
“Counterculture” by Rose B. Simpson is a landscape installation of twelve colored concrete sculptures, cast in the studios of Sculpture House Casting. The ten-feet-tall figures honor generations of marginalized people and cultures whose voices have been too often silenced by colonization. The pigment and concrete were mixed and poured into the mould. The statues were placed in the fields of Williamstown, MA, and adorned with ceramic and found objects.
Sculpture House Casting can cast pieces of art in many different materials. From resin to aluminum and from concrete to bronze. Saga by Jim Gaylord is a wall object, based on cut out aquarel paper, size 12.5 x 12.5”, cast in bronze, edition of 5.
“Aphrodite Reimagined” by Patricia Cronin is a monumental sculpture, cold cast marble and resin, 121 x 32.5 x 36 inches, cast by Sculpture House Casting. The large sculpture of Aphrodite was inspired by a fragmentary first-century AD marble torso. The final sculpture re-envisioned the old torso as a complete sculpture with translucent head, arms, and legs. The clay model was used to make moulds to cast the marble and resin parts of the statue.
Sculpture House Casting created more than twenty concrete cast objects, for the installation Open House by Liz Glynn. The lavish Louis XIV sofas, chairs, arches and footstools transformed the Doris C. Freedman Plaza close to Central Park into a nineteenth century elite ballroom. The public was invited to enjoy a previously exclusive interior space that now became accessible to all.
Sculpture House Casting created twelve life-sized resin cast lion sculptures, that were on view in the Hamptons, for the Tusk Lion Trail. The lions were were painted by famous artists and auctioned to raise money for community conservation and livelihoods impacted by Covid-19 across Africa.
From tot to bottom:
”Past Present Future” by Donna Karan & Xio Grossett
”It’s not just a lion” by William Quigly
”Kitten Face” by Jeremy Penn
All molds are made by hand. Simple forms can be cast easily, but often it’s more complex and molds will be made in different segments and divided in parts. It requires a lot of experience to create the perfect mould.
The rubber mold is made with two-component rubber, that is mixed, made vacuum to get the air out - it resembles cooking - and then poured over the prepared object that will be cast.
When the mold is ready, the resin is poured into the mold and placed in a pressure tank to get the air bubbles out.
Sculpture House Casting created a series transparant colored resin spray bottles, 4.5 x 11 x 3”. A spray bottle from the supermarket was used as a model. Conceptual artist Airco Caravan questions the challenges of our society through spray cans and spray bottles titled “Pest AC. For a better world.”
Old ornaments and cornices can be restored. We can make a print of the original plaster crown molding and create new ornaments that fit exactly. From one piece to large quantities.
The East River Park Seals are a spray fountain designed by Gerry Augustine Lynas, that was installed in 2001. The fountain consists of twenty-seven fiberglass mixed with bronze dust sculptures of harbor seals and turtles.
The sculptures were removed in 2022 because of the renovation of the park to protect the Lower East Side from flooding. The seals, residing in our factory temporarily, will be cast in bronze and returned to the East River Park.
Photo: Wally Gobetz
Untitled (Van Door), cast resin, fiberglass , 51 x 57 x 5 inch. Edition of 3 + 1 AP. The Van Door is a life-size recreation of the back door of a van, and has a personal touch from the artist. The license plate is from the Panama Canal Zone where Prince was born.
“Fox Games” is a series of twenty cast red foxes in a restaurant setting. In “Angels and Strangers” more than forty purple squirrels were cast by Sculpture House Casting. They were placed in a pink setting.
Skoglund bridges the boundaries between sculpture, installation art, and photography having become renowned for her large format photographs of the original impermanent installations.
Ornamental Plaster & Repair
For the restoration of Carnegie Hall in 1985 we created all our moldings by hand. Usually, the architect or designer provides us with the specifications of the molding in a line drawing that includes sizes like drop and projection ask well as the radius of the curves.
Then the outline of the molding is cut into a piece of sheet metal and fastened to a wood jig. Plaster is added to the bed while the metal jig is drawn across it. This is done multiple times until the metal template cuts the exact impression in the plaster.
Once dried, the finish molding is ready for install. The molding is installed with plaster, screws, and adhesive. All joints and screw holes are patched to make the molding seamless. The pictures below were taken during the restoration of Carnegie Hall.
