Two years ago, we asked renown artist Frances Gage if she would consider created a bust of each of our children. I may very well have written here about it before. I honestly forget and am too lazy to check just now… Nevertheless, she agreed and suggested a 10″ high version of each child. This seemed great!
She is 85 now and began work shortly after we talked about it and met the kids a few times, with me leaving a few photos of them each time we visited.
We were mildly surprised when we went to have a first look, as the heads were not only substantially larger than 10″ but larger than the children’s heads in life! THis engendered an explanation from Frances that busts need to be either smaller or larger than natural proportions of they end up making the bust look like that of a dwarf. But Frances was very sad one day when she reported to us that her plastercine attempts had failed in the summer heat one day and she found one of the busts in pieces on the floor of her studio. But Frances is nothing if not tough, and she started once again but with clay this time, and did not again experience a medium failure. The finals were cast in plaster and then coated/painted with a gold mix to give them some sheen and depth.
Here are the finished plaster busts, as we see them today. Following are a variety of stages of these busts on their way to completion.
And here is Frances Gage. I find it easy to see the beautiful young woman in this portrait still sparkling inside her:
And here is her studio:
And here are the busts in descending stages of what you see above here:
