Saturday, February 18, 2017

Great White Buffalo Commission for Buffalo Trace Distillery

It's been a very long time since my last blog post.  But, here's the latest news...
 I received a commission from Buffalo Trace Distilleries in Frankfort, KY.  Approximately 28 artist from around the world submitted designs to the open call for submissions through callforentry.org.
 My plaster model was picked by the employees of Buffalo Trace as the favorite.
 I found a 32,000 lb. block at Victor Quarry near Bloomington that was big enough.  The Buffalo needed to be 7-1/2' long x 5' high x 3' wide.  The block was 8-1/2' x 5'-2" x 4'-11", so I was happy that the quarry agreed to make a cut lengthwise to the 3' width - to save me a LOT of time.
 On February 15, Padgett Crane of New Albany, IN sent out a 50 ton crane to unload the stone that was delivered by Stone Belt Trucking of Bloomington.
 With the extra width cut off, the Buffalo stone now only weighed 22,000 lbs.  That's a good start....
 Here is the other 10,000 lbs. that they cut off.  It will likely become a functional sculpture (bench) someday.
Here is the block ready to be carved.  Tabula Rasa - the clean saw cut down the side is like a blank canvas ready to receive the first mark. The block is actually about 39" wide, so I can make the whole thing a little bigger - and make good use of the whole block.