What: Bronze Plus Art Foundry
Where: 120 Todd Road in Santa Rosa
When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday; closed on weekends
Information: 707-829-0716 or jpollare@comcast.net
Blazing liquid bronze, so hot it glows vermilion, gushes from a crane-suspended crucible — a giant pot made of silicon carbide — into molds as the metal workers at Bronze Plus Art Foundry work the equipment and white ashes dance in the air.
A small group of family members and artists, who are more than just curious bystanders, gather to witness the creative process firsthand. They are an invested crowd that watches in awe as workers tip the over 2,000-degree molten metal into the artist’s molds.
“Artists like to look over the shoulder of craftsmen,” said Jim Pollare, owner of the Bronze Plus Art Foundry in southwest Santa Rosa.
The foundry quite literally allows this level of involvement, as was the case with Gloria Nusse of the South Bay and Matt Hart, a patina artist and foundry worker.
“Can you just darken it around the collar a bit more?” Nusse said to Hart as she surveys her freshly forged sculpture.
The detail-oriented craftsmanship and ability to participate in the forging process is what draws artists from around the world to a lime green warehouse just off the Todd Road overpass in southwest Santa Rosa, where workers practice an ancient art form to help bring their creations to life.
Nusse is a sculptor herself, who mainly does forensic work. She’s known for helping solve cold cases through her facial reconstruction work, but lately she has been doing portrait sculptures.
On a recent July afternoon, she helps immortalize South Bay coach Jim Randall, who holds the record for most football wins at Mission San José High School since 1978 and whose bust she was commissioned to create. Randall died in 2005 from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The bronze bust of Randall is the third in a series of six that honor legendary coaches across the Bay Area.
Nusse said Randall’s sons were insistent that his bronze bust have a scowl because that’s how intense he looked when he coached.
“All right, I’m getting it together over here,” Hart said as he took Nusse’s suggestion and sprayed a black inky liquid on coach Randall’s collar, which is part of the patina that adds dimension and texture to the bronze pieces.
Hart said that patina, a chemical process, is what gives bronze different textures and colors over time. The various chemicals create different reactions on the bronze and speed up the process of getting that classic, aged-bronze look.
“The process is incredible,” said Violet Baumfeld, 11.
She watches in awe as her grandma, Virginia Harrison pours the scorching-hot metal into the mold that Violet herself created.
The mold is of a submarine from the Beatles movie “Yellow Submarine,” which Violet later hammered off to reveal the intricate bronze sculpture she designed. Violet’s brother, Olen Baumfeld, 14, made a sphere covered in a geometric maze-like pattern.
“I’m really happy to see my grandmother do something that she absolutely loves,” Olen said.
Harrison, who has worked at the foundry since 1992, creates intricately woven bronze sculptures and also helps with the bronze pouring process.
“It’s so special for me to share my process with them,” she said as she gave a beaming smile and beat her hand on her chest to signal her heart beating and her pride in her grandchildren.
Bronze Plus Art Foundry first opened in 1989 in Sebastopol by Robert Holmes, an artist who wanted to control his own production. He ran the foundry until he died in 2017 and Pollare aquired the business. The foundry moved to southwest Santa Rosa in 2016 when Sebastopol’s rents grew beyond what they could afford, Pollare said.
The locally owned foundry prides itself in using the lost-wax casting technique, a process that is more than 5,000 years old. They start by making a rubber mold of the artist’s original. Then they pour wax into the mold and dip the wax form into a ceramic shell solution over a period of two weeks. They melt the wax outside in a kiln and the empty ceramic mold is filled with metal in a pouring session, Hart said.
“We can get details up to a fingerprint,” Hart said.
Artists at the foundry have made everything from the John Muir statue in Yosemite National Park and the Accordion Master of Cotati at La Plaza Park to abstract sculptures and even coyotes, deer and their scat for an installment by Nusse a few years ago for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
One thing artisans understand far too well are the frustrations and hiccups that come with the creative process. For the foundry, not all casting and pouring sessions go to plan.
The foundry can lose thousands of dollars if the workers have a bad pour and the pressure from the metal makes the mold explode out the bottom, Pollare said.
The coronavirus pandemic added strain on the foundry beyond the high costs of rent, materials and labor, because many artists — facing pandemic-related challenges of their own — were not able to pay for the foundry’s services, Pollare said.
Now, the foundry is bouncing back and artists returning because people are buying more of their art.
“There’s always a sense of accomplishment and a sense of failure that balance each other out,” Pollare said. “And it’s casting sessions like this that make it well worthwhile,” as he gestured toward Nusse and Harrison’s family.
Outside of the foundry warehouse, Hart continues to work on applying patina on the bronze bust of coach Randall as Nusse continues to jokingly boss him around.
“All right, it’s fire time,” Hart said enthusiastically as he sorts through various spray bottles full of chemicals.
He turns on his flamethrower and starts blazing the coach while spraying him with liquids. The coach’s scowl appears periodically through the steam as Hart simultaneously hoses it down with water and chemicals and turns the bust on a rotating platform.
“I love it,” Nusse said. “It’s beautiful. He has that 5 o’clock shadow. That just looks beautiful!”
After Hart is done with the patina, he applies a thin layer of wax on coach Randall to help seal the chemicals, filling the area outside the warehouse with a crayon-like smell.
“There’s just something archival and beautiful about the bronze,” Nusse said, gazing at the bronze bust. “It’s texturized and imperfect. When you look at it, it feels warm.”
You can reach Staff Writer Alana Minkler at 707-526-8511 or alana.minkler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @alana_minkler.
What: Bronze Plus Art Foundry
Where: 120 Todd Road in Santa Rosa
When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday; closed on weekends
Information: 707-829-0716 or jpollare@comcast.net
Breaking news & general assignment reporter, The Press Democrat
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