It is summer of 2022, and Rusty Mesa is in full swing with more work than ever before. Having started in 2009 under the radar, we mostly garnered business by word of mouth and have steadily grown into our busiest year yet. We call ourselves a Family of Services. You may ask yourself, “What is a Family of Services, exactly?” Well, Family refers to the creative hands that transform clay, wax, and other assorted materials into bronze.
Rusty Mesa is a bronze art studio who handles the wax pour and dress, weld and chase, and patina directly in house. By contracting and coordinating the mold and casting services, we act as a full-service foundry, so you don’t have to. Our team of professionals love working closely with Artists in understanding the subtle details that define their work. Those details often become the patina, texture, and mood of the piece, so the more specific the Artist can be about the aesthetics of their piece in the beginning, the easier it is for us to manifest their vision.
The process of making bronze sculpture begins with a well-engineered mold which allows the wax to flow unimpeded throughout, capturing all the details. With an evenly distributed thickness of about 3/16”-1/4”, the wax re-creates the positive of the piece from the negative space of the mold. At this point, we invite our clients to have a hand in the process by checking their waxes for any details we may have missed. After the waxes have been approved, they are packed into boxes and picked up by Madd Castings to take back to their foundry in Berthoud, Colorado. This process repeats every five weeks, so you can imagine how important it is for everyone involved to clearly communicate, schedule deadlines, and negotiate goals.
Once Madd has the waxes in hand, “The Lost Wax Process” begins. The waxes are covered in a dry slurry and put in an oven to melt away the wax, creating and empty cavity for molten bronze. Once the bronze cools, the hardened investment is jack hammered then sandblasted away, leaving the raw bronze which is returned to Rusty Mesa five weeks later. And the entire process begins again! Building relationships on trust and communication with genuinely competent artisans in their field makes it possible for us to keep up with all the moving parts in this fascinating process. Rusty Mesa is an interwoven and interdependent business focused on a truly creative process through and through, where each decision affects the whole Family.