THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2013
ART
PAGE 11A
Lawrence Arts Center to feature local sculptor's work
ASHLEY BOOKER
abooker@kansan.com
The founding father of 20th-century bronze casting, Elden Tefft, will have his work displayed at the Lawrence Arts Center starting Oct. 25.
The exhibit is a theme show titled "Gossamer: Before and After the Sculpture Moses," and is the first time Teff's work will be displayed at the Arts Center.
At 93 years old, Tefft has created his own foundry and studio where he still works. He built foundries in Central and South America and instigated foundries in Thailand and the Philippines. Tefft returned sculpture founding to China and founded the International Sculpture Center and its conferences. He taught at the University for 40 years, and was awarded the first Governor's Art's Life Time Achievement Award in Art Education in 1997, according to documents by Tefft Terra Studios.
When Tefft was in school, bronze was practically outlawed as a fine arts media by the carve direct school, Elden's son Kim Tefft said. Sculptors had to send plaster models off to foundries in Europe where they would be casted. The problem was, once the model was placed out of the sculptors hands and into someone else's, the carve direct school didn't see it as fine art.
Teftif was frustrated by this technical boundary and after learning techniques of the lost wax process,
created his own foundry. He taught sculptors how to do the process themselves. Lost wax techniques were practiced in a Mexican foundry in Mexico City, where he visited with his mentor, Bernard "Poco" Frazier—the sculptor of the Memorial Campanile bronze panel doors on campus.
Through the progression of his work, Tefft found inspiration from Frazier.
Most people don't realize that the term "solid bronze" does not actually mean the bronze is physically solid, Kim Teft said. This is a type of revelation for people. When bronze is cooled it shrinks, which makes it difficult to cast. A physically solid bronze would be far too heavy.
The term gossamer means gosslike, or see-through. Tefft's mission has been to open up the interior of a sculpture and create negative volume as a form of art. Negative volume lets viewers see how bronze is truly hollow.
Pieces in "Gossamer: Before and After the Sculpture Mosee" will display an exterior form, interior form and interior-interior form.
"Most recently I've been doing some tests that puts a little form inside of the form," Tefft said.
The figure is casted and heat-mold material called investment is bound plaster. A spatula can be used to create a core form, direct wax model is formed over that and a complete mold is created and
molded. So, it's a casting around a casting.
Teft said he felt delighted when the first casting around a casting came together in his sculpture, Nymph, which is one of the most recent editions to the gossamer series.
Teftt said he believes in concepts of contemporary art, which demonstrate an honesty of materials and an honesty to process. An honesty to material is when a material looks like its original form. Honesty of process resembles how the piece was made—for example, Moses (in front of Smith Hall) has modeling tool marks that were used to define the wax's form.
The gossamer series will feature 18 different sculptures. Two separate photos will resemble Moses (statue outside of Smith Hall) and the Fourth #2 (a sculpture at Tefft's residence), both of which are too large to relocate for the show. But, the rest of the sculptures will be in original form, or maquette form—small-scale model.
Tefft's goal is for the show to turn into a traveling exhibit where all of the pieces are kept together.
The exhibit "Gossamer: Before and After the Sculpture Moses" will begin Oct. 25 at Final Fridays at 5 p.m. It will continue to be shown in the front gallery of the Lawrence Arts Center for a month.
— Edited by Hannah Barling
Sculptor Elden Tefft is pictured in his Lawrence studio, Tefft, who taught at the University for 40 years, will have a series of 18 sculptures on display in the front gallery of the Lawrence Art Center for a month, beginning Oct.25.
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