Berkeley Art Works

 Yesterday Bob and I went on a tour of Berkeley Art Works, a Berkeley Foundry.  I didn’t exactly know what a Foundry was, something to do with metal I thought.  We got to the place a bit early.  It was down in southwest Berkeley, near the Berkeley Bowl market on Heinz Street.  There was a large parking lot with beautiful sculptures in it and I wondered what we were in for.  We went into the building and waited with the other milling people for the tour to start.  It was sponsored by the Berkeley City Committee to promote manufacturing in Berkeley.  

We learned that this Foundry is really special, one of the few remaining ones on the West Coast.  It has clients from as far away as France, England and Belgium as well as artists on the West Coast.  What they do there is make bronze sculptures.  We saw the wax being poured into a rubber mold to make the sculpture form, the first step.  However most sculpture forms now are made on a 3-D printer they have.  Either the wax mold or the 3-D sculpture are dipped over and over into a silicon based slurry to form a crust over and within the sculpture mold.  Then, this is put into a huge big kiln (many sculuptures are huge) and heated to a very hot temperature.  It is taken out of the kiln and moved near to a pit where the bronze is melted and heated to a temperature of 2100 degrees F.  Three workers suited up in silver suits to reflect the heat, with thick leather gloves and a welding type helmet.  They.moved the hot hot bucket with the melted bronze over to the sculpture mold and poured it carefully into the mold.  It was exciting to see the red flow, like lava, of the pouring metal.  After a while, it was finished and the bucket went back into the underground pit where it resides between pours.

After this the sculpture is cooled and the forms come off.  Then they are welded together, if they are big and need that.  And then covered with a glaze, rather like a pottery glaze. There was a display of all the various possibilities.  We saw a huge sculpture,like a giant chambered nautilus made from many welded pieces of bronze.  It is to be installed at the Ashby BART station a a couple of months.  The art was beautiful.  It was fun to see son of a friend from church working there.  Overall, I was impressed to see such an operation right here in Berkeley.  It’s been here all the time we’ve lived here, 44 years and I never knew a thing about it.  Good to keep learning new things about how exceptional Berkeley is.