Friday, April 3, 2009

Fountain!


I recently finished installing a fountain piece for a residency in Beverly Hills. The process for that piece was detailed below, and I'll share the end results here! Their house is beautiful and their landscape is amazing, with plenty of lush greens indigenous to the CA area. The piece is set near their walkway and is set on a pedestal over smooth black/grey stones. I've worked on this project for many months with the owners and a team of designers and contractors. The place looks great!


Getting a bath



Water running down the divots.

Front view.


View with the garden.

Me with the piece before it was elevated a bit more.


-p

The Process

Realizing that simply looking at these pieces may lead to questions of how they are created, I would like to illuminate here in this posting the process about making my marble pieces:

(Before step 1, light sketches are done for each piece and relayed to the workers in India)

Step 1: Finding the perfect marble slab and carving it into an egg-like oval.

->


Step 2: Marking up where the first set of inlay will go in.


notes are made as to which color inlay should be put in where.

Step 3: Setting in the first set of inlay. (For this piece, it is tiger eye and lapis lazuli)

Inserting the inlay by hand.

It is then polished a bit.


Beautiful!

Step 4: I relay where the piece should be cut in half and it is cut in half using a large saw-like tool that vacillates back and forth while the object being cut is doused with water to reduce friction. The eggs are held tight in little nests made of a concrete-like material. This process takes all day to do.

The plans are made

The egg is towed away on a blanket to the cutting board!

The cutting process.

Step 5: Inlay is added to the freshly cut interior part of the egg piece.

The marks are made as to where the inlay should be put.

The inlay is added.

Step 5: The polishing begins. Polishing is another long process.


Beginning polishing

The finished polished project!


Small divots are made into the surface for texture because this piece is going to be a fountain.

Alas, all that is left is installation!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

New Blog.


Hello all,

Welcome to my blog. I am starting this new blog to share some of my art with the public and to network with other artists and curators. Please visit my site at www.pavelkraus.com. I will post soon details about some of my new works using the Pietre Dure technique with marble & semi-precious stones.

Pavel

image: "Offerings/Redemption," 2008. 18"x13"x10.5" White marble with lapis lazuli & tiger eye inlay.