Calgary Herald

These figures—from the cast of characters of newspaper newsrooms of old (i.e., even before I started my career)—were cast from the originals on the Calgary Herald Building that was demolished in 1972.

This trio is now located on the Alberta Hotel building on Stephen Avenue, but originally the Southams (then owners of the Herald) commissioned Royal Doulton in the U.K. to design and make 44 figures and masks for the exterior of the newspaper building.

According to information on a Calgary Public Library website, the gargoyles were the work of sculptor Mark Villars Marshall (1879 - 1912), who died shortly after the gargoyles were installed in 1912. Marshall had been a stone carver working on Victorian Gothic Revival churches before he went to work at Royal Doulton's Lambeth Studios in the late 1870s.

At the time of demolition, the Herald building was known as the Greyhound Building, and the gargoyles were scattered, including to other buildings including the Calgary Convention Centre and the University of Calgary.

Chicago Tribune

I'm still experiencing re-entry to the Day Job, after four weeks off, so forgive me (again) if I don't expound on the future of publishing just yet. However, I wanted to continue the series of newspaper office faces. These two are from Tribune Tower in Chicago.

"Souvenir of Tribune Tower," an undated booklet (looks as though it might be from the 1920s or 1930s) that gives the story of the building and the newspaper (and that I scored on eBay earlier this year), also describes the sculptures in and on the building.

It says that the "whispering man" (above) typifies "insidious rumour," while the "shouting man" (below) is the "spirit of open rumour or news."

Hmmm ... not sure I ever thought of news as "open rumour."

San Antonio Express-News

This is the second in a series of pictures of sculpture on old newspaper buildings. This is the San Antonio Express-News building. While a star marks Iowa City on the map on the former Iowa City Press-Citizen building, one of the figures here is merely pointing to San Antonio's location on this map. (See detail below, and click for larger)

The frieze, titled "Enlightening of the Press" and designed by sculptor Pompeo Coppini, allegorically describes the mission of a newspaper. The globe is connected to phone and telegraph wires representing news being communicated around the world. The six figures surrounding the globe represent Labour, Education, Knowledge (he's the one whose finger points to Texas on the globe), Enlightenment, Truth and Justice.

I'm still on vacation, so speculation on the future of journalism in general or newspapers in particular will have to wait for another day. It's too damned hot for serious thinking anyway.

Iowa City Press-Citizen

I'm just back from four days in Iowa City at my sister's wedding. I took more than 340 pictures at the wedding, rehearsal dinner, reception, visit to the county recorder's office, etc., so forgive me if I post some pictures I took from 2002. (That was the year she moved to the Midwest. She had fibromyalgia or something like it at the time and wasn't able to drive. So being the outstanding big sister that I am, I drove her (and her two cats and dog) from Blacksburg, Va., where she had been a math professor at Virginia Tech, to Iowa City where she was about to become a student again, in the University of Iowa's creative non-fiction programme. Yay me! I deserve a medal but will get one only if I bestow it upon myself.)

I shot these pictures on that trip — the sculptures on the former Iowa City Press-Citizen building, which include methods of newsgathering (above; there's a star on the map of the U.S. where Iowa City is), and these symbols of what goes on in Iowa City and environs:


This time I had other things to do in Iowa City than to contemplate the future of newspapers in particular and journalism in general, but as I post pictures of the sculpture on the buildings of other cities' current (and defunct) newspapers, I may do some musing on those subjects as well.

Sculpture: from clay model to bronze statue

Earlier this week, I was one of 20 people on a tour sponsored by the Art Gallery of Ontario of the Artcast foundry in Georgetown, where Eric Knoespel (left) and his staff have been casting sculptures in clay and other impermanent materials into bronze and other metals for years.

We were walked through all stages of the process, from producing a rubber mold of the original (on the table in the picture at left), to making a wax duplicate which is then covered with a ceramic shell mold (which Eric is displaying, above and below).




(See the red wax inside the ceramic shell? Click on picture to see larger.)



The wax is then melted out of of the ceramic shell. The shell is fired for extra strength and then placed in a bucket of sand, at which time the molten metal is poured in the ceramic mold:

















The mold and metal are left to cool, at which point the ceramic mold is chipped away, and voila! A bronze sculpture!
Okay, this is a very oversimplified explanation of how it's done — there are several additional steps throughout the process I've described, and afterward. For example, the Glenn Gould statue in front of the CBC Broadcasting Centre on Front Street was cast by Artcast, and a work that size has to be done in pieces, which means there are later steps in its reconstruction.
But essentially, that's how it's done. And Eric gave a great tour.

Shaking Man

Back on June 22, when I posted the picture of one of Terry Allen's gargoyles in Denver International Airport, I mentioned "Shaking Man," his sculpture in San Francisco. Well, here it... I mean, here he is, from a couple of angles.




Isn't he great? Even though I think Terry did a particularly good job on the tie, I shot a close-up of the Shaking Man's extended hand. Those seemingly unattached fingers really contribute to the shaking effect.