Richard Brixel’s description of his artistic process
Most of my sculptures I model in different sorts of clay and then cast them in bronze.
At the academy my teacher Eberhard Höll taught us the technics of bronze casting so when leaving school I went to scrapyards to buy the used bronze bearings from old motors.
We took part in the setting up of the artists collective bronze studios in Stockholm were we worked for many years. Other artist went for summer holidays so we had all the bronze casting studios for ourselves. It was hard work but we survived taking part in exhibitions during the rest of the year.
Later we also set up a bonze-casting studio at our home but I realized that this was a waste of time so I went all around Sweden, Scandinavia and Europe to find the best bronze casters. In Italy I visited 220 bronze foundries in 1973. Two of them I found were up to my requirements, one in Milan and the other one in the small Tuscan town of Pietrasanta. Master was the young Massimo del Chiaro and Pietrasanta is situated close to the Mediterranean sea. I stayed there for more than 40 years, modeling and casting there every year.
In 1998 I went to China and soon found the excellent bronze caster Mao Idong whose technics and ways of working is even better than what I have ever seen elsewhere so now I work and cast my sculptures there.
Often I get my ideas about sculpture in dreams, reading, sometimes out in nature and often in talks and discussion with my close ones. Then I sketch, when younger often also in paintings, now mostly directly in clay.
When working I first make some smaller models around 40 centimeter, try to find the right directions, movement and then the volumes.Sometimes I need a model.For this sculpture we could only have the racing suite over night due to insurance requirements so I put up a model on this leather horse.Then I go on and hire a studio close to a bronze caster were I enlarge the sculpture to the final size using about 300 points.We make a structure of steel using and cover with chicken net.Putting up the first layer of clay.Modeling the Prancing Horse head.The Ferrari/Schumacher sculpture took about 9 months of modeling for me.When I am ready and my signature is in the clay at a small ceremony the sculpture is handed over to the mold maker and that long, difficult journey to transform the clay into bronze starts.The foundry stores my molds.In the molds a layer of about 6 mm wax is applied and all necessary risers and gathers for the bronze castings are set.The waxes are put in new molds and stay for a week in up to 600° warm, large kilns where all the wax is melted and there will be a hollow place where the wax once was.
When all the wax is melted out and the molds are cleaned with high air pressure the bronze is melted and poured into the empty molds, a magic moment for everyone.Long and very interesting talks with a gentleman, the constructor of all my sculptures cast at del Chiaro. This one has to be able to stand sand storms of 35 m/s in Saudi Arabia according to my client.The inner structure is laid out and welded to the bronze.
There are many, many parts to weld before the sculpture is back to what it was in clay.The sculpture is welded, chiseled, grated and finally the patina and a layer of special wax is applied.The sculpture is loaded on a truck for its final destination, a private park in north Germany.We have prepared the steel structure and ground. Now we hope everything will fit smoothly together.Sculpture is up and everybody is gone for champagne and celebrations!
