BRONZES by

QUEST... the PORTAL

Bronze / Cast Aluminum
8" x 16" high with Base
Wt. 11 lbs.
1/1  Original

$1,500

Artist's Comments:
The viewer can envision the turtle as a personal image to symbolize an individual quest and passing through the portals in life that are such a significant aspect of our journey.

Or... view it as the quest of Turtle Island itself, reaching a portal in it's progression. A common Native American legend is that, after the great flood, a large turtle volunteered its shell as a place for a piece of earth for creatures to live on. Earth that grew, with the aid of the winds from the four directions, into a huge island in the water known as North America, or Turtle Island.

From a technical (as well as aesthetic) standpoint, this is a very unusual piece. It combines both bronze and aluminum in the same work. Bronze is poured at nearly 2200 degrees and aluminum at under 1400. The two will not "bond" together. The technique I used was to cast the lower bronze portion first. Using a "lost foam" process, I formed the upper portion of the main body, and then "invested" the two sections together. It was engineered so that the two sections would permanently interlock when the molten aluminum was then poured over the bronze.