Artist's Studio—Holly Crocker Garcia

These are the materials I use when sculpting my pieces: aluminum wire for the main armature, copper wire for the fingers, and Permoplast oil-based plastiline for the body. I work from photographs taken of Petra at a professional photographer’s studio. We shot the pose from eight different angles, Petra turning while the photographer remained stationary. This was especially tricky because she was on pointe. I measured Petra’s proportions very carefully from joint to joint and then scaled down these measurements for my piece. This particular piece will be 27% life size.

The swan tutu is almost another entity in itself which I must tackle as a whole new sculpture once the body is finished. I have to have a detailed consultation with my foundry to see just how much delicate feather protrusion from the surface can actually be cast.

It will not be possible to have the feathers quite so "uplifted" from the tutu as each feather negative space in the mold would entrap air bubbles in the wax casting. So this detailed costume (including the crown) will have to meet somewhere in the middle between what I would like to portray (feathers floating up from the tutu) and what is possible to portray (plenty of detail in the feathers but not much protrusion from the surface).

In the previous steps I used only my thumbs for adding clay. But then I started to use wire tools for removing clay and shapers to smooth the clay in areas where my fingers are too big. Commercial sculpture tools and loops are fine but my teacher also made several shapers for me out of stainless steel and brass which are sleek with no drag. When I begin work on eyes, nostrils, fingernails I have to use very tiny round ball stylus tools, toothpicks and straight pins – hence the thick magnifying glasses I have to wear for that very close work.

I have now begun work on Petra's beautiful, arched feet and the shoes which support her on pointe. For this I have to lay the piece on its back so that I can work the toes all the way to the end. As the clay is a magnet for dust I have to have all the areas I'm not immediately working on wrapped in plastic. I use actual satin ribbons on my ballet pieces as they are the perfect scale and have a nice texture to them.

Here is a picture of my old pointe shoes from when I studied many years ago. In those days the "box" of the shoe was made of wood but now plastic is often used. The dancer wraps wads of lamb's wool around her toes and stuffs them into the shoe, wrapping the ribbons around her ankle. Since I started dancing way too late and I had arches as flat as boards, I gave up ballet and now dance vicariously through my models.

Now I have started constructing the tutu skirt. I started with ½" rings of rolled clay pressed tightly around the body at the hips with stiff wires stuck through the clay and deep into the body. Thereafter, I used shorter pieces of wire securing each clay ring to the one before. The wires showing here are just for a general guide so I'll know how far to extend the skirt. I have decided to depict the skirt a little shorter and more uplifted than the one Petra wore during out shoot – as though there were air underneath it. Also, the shorter the tutu, the more the beautiful long leg lines show.

A real tutu skirt is supported by concentric rings of ruffled tulle netting underneath, giving it lift and a look of weightlessness. I carved this softly rounded, triangular shaped wood tool to depict the bunched up, gathered edges of the tulle netting at the edges of the skirt layers.

I never thought I would finish the 80 individually sculpted feathers decorating the tutu skirt but after two weeks they are done. Now I must take some time off to give my eyes a rest after all that close work.

Here are foundry workers carefully removing the rubber mold from the main body.

This is the mold lying flat showing the rubber mold liner and the plaster mother mold surrounding it. It's a little hard to see what's what but the form you see is actually a negative cavity. The mold is in four parts: front and back above the tutu, and front and back below the tutu.

Here is the lower half of the arms mold. This is a "block mold" where the rubber is thick enough not to need a plaster mother mold to support it.

Here is the wax worker re-carving feather detail in the headpiece. I made a special jig to help her stand up in a relatively upright position for easier chasing.

Working on the pointe shoes. Not shown is how the worker took her out of the jig and turned her completely upside down (I could not watch) into her "Swan Dive" position to work on feet more. Stress level for artist at this point: through the roof.

The wax replica with her arms by her side. Next step is attaching the "sprues"—the spaghetti-like tubes of wax arcing out from all over the piece – which will direct the air bubbles away from the body when the molten bronze is poured into the next mold (the ceramic mold).

The wax replica is then dipped into a "slurry" bath, ceramic in liquid form. The first dip is the finest slurry to capture all the intricate surface detail. Then it is dipped in progressively coarser slurries to build up the ceramic mold's thickness. There are usually 10-12 dips with drying in between coats.

When the ceramic mold is dry it is put into a kiln upside down and heated. The wax runs out the bottom (“lost wax process”) and leaves an empty ceramic shell. That shell is then put in a bed of sand and bronze heated to about 2100 degrees is poured into the mold. So dramatic!

Once cooled, the only way to get that ceramic shell off the cast bronze is to bust it off with small hammers, chisels and fine bead blasting (like sand blasting but with fine glass beads which don't remove as much surface detail). The man hours required to remove all this shell are astounding. I have never seen one of my pieces at this "rough cast" stage and believe me, it was a shock! The finished bronze will seem all the more incredible after seeing this photograph. Imagine a bronze finisher spending hours and hours picking the shell out of Swan Queen's feathers and ruffles... almost unbelievable.

Here we are spot welding the arms onto the body. I have to wear a heavy leather glove to withstand the heat of the welder while holding the arm in place for tacking.

Now the bronze finisher has to fill in and chase the arm joints. He is a real master craftsman because when the arm joint is finished one cannot tell where that joint is, it is that smooth.

This is the special method I have devised for holding Swan Queen straight while I drill holes in both her toes. I made a custom plexi glass box which allows me to walk all around the piece and ensure that it is not tipped in any direction. Then I strapped her in very tightly with tie wraps.

This is hands-down the most stressful part of the entire sculpting process – drilling 1½" straight down into her toes. I can only hope that nothing moved out of alignment as I tipped the mounting box completely upside down with Swan Queen suspended inside.

Tapping screw threads into the newly-drilled holes is a very time consuming process. Go too fast or too hard and the tap breaks off inside the foot. I leave this job entirely to my husband as he has the strength and skill to do this.

My beautiful model, Petra Conti, and her fellow Boston Ballet dancer and husband, Eris Nezha, visited me in my workshop to see the progress of Swan Queen. They were very pleased with her! This was an emotional moment for all of us. I worked very hard on the finishing of the bronze and she looks lovely in bright gold bronze but she will have a soft white patina in the end.

The patina process is another dramatic transformation in Swan Queen's appearance. First she was buff-colored clay, then she was dark brown wax, then she was bright polished gold and now she takes on her final color—pale mottled grey. The piece is heated with a propane blow torch to an extremely high temperature and then acid is applied with a brush, stippled on to create a subtly mottled appearance. We are aiming for a "stone" look, rather than a solid, spray-painted white. I love this shot especially for the worker on the right wearing A.R.T. Research's motto "Think Sculpture". I do!

The extreme wide angle of my point-and-shoot camera makes the proportions look wacko in this shot but I needed a "right in the moment" shot. The beige-colored foggy stuff below the worker’s hand is the steam which spews off the piece when the acid is applied. You can kindof see the transformation in this shot from the brassy gold feathers to the ghostly, rather mysterious pale grey swan feathers. So Swan Lake! Once the piece has cooled wax will be applied which will make the color go darker with more grey flecks showing through and more "depth".

Here is the final picture I will post in this journey, "The Birth of a Swan". Here is her beautiful face. It has been a long, complicated process but I am very happy with the result. I have been sculpting since I was 6 years old (in Play Dough) and Swan Queen is my best piece to date. Thank you for following this story of her birth. As my beautiful Italian model would say… Ciao.