Mike Price at Work

I came across these images while organizing the complete slides of the late sculptor Michael Price for his wife, Susan Davis Price. Price was a figurative sculptor who was influenced by Marino Marini and Giacomo Manzu and whose work was often inspired by scripture. He worked in clay, and like every sculptor written about on this blog, he knew how to cast his original clay pieces into plaster and bronze, and he did it himself (in a foundry he built by hand), often with the help of the students he taught at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he lived.

Shot in October and November of 1971 with beautiful Ektachrome slide film, these images show Price in nearly every stage of the 6,500-year-old process known as lost wax investment casting. Inevitably, they also show Mike's characteristic good humor and sweet personality.

Click on photos to enlarge.

Early in the process, Price melts the wax, applies it to the inside of a rubber mold, and inserts pins into the cast wax head.

Here, Price encases the wax in an investment mold, made of plaster, silica and sand, and wraps it tightly with chicken wire.

At this point, the investment mold is placed in a kiln for several days and heated ("burnt out"). This stage melts the wax and burns out the carbon, creating a void that will filled by the molten bronze.

The bronze, heated to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit, is poured into the investment mold.

When the bronze has cooled and has been broken out of its investment mold, we see Price chasing, welding, and grinding to prepare the piece for its final state. 

Lastly, Price applies a chemically-induced color, called a patina, to the near-finished bronze.

See more images from this collection on our Flickr page. 

Learn more about lost wax investment casting here. 

Thanks to Susan Davis Price for the use of these images.