• Year review of 2018

    background, Latest projects

    Year review of 2018

    It seemed nice to sum up this year of sculpting in some words and pictures. Not in chronological order, because my work sometimes jumps from one thing to another, for often suddenly urgent commissions come in between. I like it that way too, I love things being a bit unpredictable! But only when there's not too much pressure on things.

    Finishing flying buttresses 4, 5, 6 and 7

    Last year I spent a long time making flying buttress figurines as well for the north side of St. Eusebius's Church in Arnhem. Early January that job was nearly done; I only had to make a Monk, a Bear, a man calling Noah, a Monkey and an Ark with animals out of new limestone. It was the last series of the four flying buttresses themed around Noah's Ark.

    Calamities and Repairs

    Amid heavy snowfall and storms, work went on as usual. I accounted for a severe frost period and just continued sawing. A part of the barn didn't feel the same way about it, and collapsed under the weight of a thick layer of wet snow. A few weeks later I narrowly escaped from a disaster, when in a torrential storm a sheet of asbestos was blown from the roof and landed right next to my finished flying buttress sculptures.

    Part of my repair work consists of patching up damaged statues. For instance I had to repair a Faun with a Pan Flute and a statue of Thomas Aquinas in my shop this year.

    Injury and recovery

    Something I've not reported on this blog is that I've been incapacitated for quite some time by injuries earlier this year. I hear you think it would surely have come about because of my job. I do have quite the productivity and it is rather physical work. And at times there can be some pressure to finish it all in time. But it wasn't anything like that. First it was an accident when I cut open my thumb deep on a party tent that threatened to blow away. Just three stitches and two weeks later I was back at work again.

    But it was not long before I was back home for some weeks. This time I had overstrained both my arms during removals (at temperatures around minus eight degrees Celsius). At least I now know how to recover from two tennis elbow quickly: not with all kinds of therapies, but by massaging the muscles in your forearm deeply for several times a day. This way, you'll relieve the tension from of the muscle and it will no longer pull so hard on your funny bone, let's put it this way. Learned on YouTube and experimentally tested myself.

    Own work: Pan in porphyry

    After all these flying buttress figurines, I started enthusiastically on my own project: a Pan in porphyry. I had presawn it machine and had just begun carving it, but in spite of all the good intentions, I had to put it aside because of other urent projects.

    block of porphyry for plaster image of Pan
    plaster sculpture of Pan with block of porphyry

    Ornamental works: Aachen, Utrecht, Den Bosch

    • rough block of stone for Aachen Cathedral
    • Two new finials for the Aachen Cathedral in Irish bluestone
    • crockets of irish bluestone for the Aachen Cathedral
    • lace flower in tuff for Domkerk Utrecht
    • sandstone part for St. John's Cathedral
    • finial base block from Udelfanger sandstone
    • Ornamental work in Udelfanger sandstone: suspended ornament for a canopy from St. John's Cathedral
    • ornamental work for Domkerk Utrecht

    For all kinds of ornaments had arrived in the yard, which were to be made first. So this year I made finials and crockets for Aachen Cathedral, for the Cathedral of Utrecht, again for the Utrecht Dom, and for St John's Cathedral in Den Bosch, The Netherlands. Some of them in collaboration with my colleagues. There was stonemasonry work to do. There isnewspaper article was written about it and a video was made.

    Family Crests and griffins

    • step 5: the finished coat of arms in Bentheimer sandstone
    • Griffin with shield castle entrance plastilinemodel
    • sandstone coat of arms

    Then there were two sandstone family crests which I made in between other stuff, one with an edge and one without edge, and I have been modelling away on a set of mirrored griffins. I hope to finish them next year.

    Jelle, Jeffrey and Roel

    Annual Review 2018
    Wise Virgin with a Dove, copied by Jelle

    With so much work it was not surprising that I could not keep up with it all by myself. Hence my collaboration with my colleagues and Serge and Stide. Even then, we were not able to finish it all in time. Also, I had long thought about someone to pass the craft on to, someone who wanted to become a restoration sculptor. But how do you get someone who fits the bill? Fortunately Jelle came to visit. Exactly at the right time. He has now been working with me for more than six months, to the satisfaction of both of us and doing excellent work!

    Annual Review 2018
    Jeffrey helps presawing

    Then this summer I've had help from Jeffrey a few times, who came to help out with presawing on the machine, while at the same time my nephew Roel came by to begin to learn carving letters in stone.

    More flying buttress figurines

    After the first set of 26 flying buttress figurines from the north side of the Eusebius Church, we now had to make the 27 from the Southside.

    Annual Review 2018
    Roel learning to carve letters

    But fortunately from flying buttress no. 32 I had already made seven angels when he, plus a girl from buttress no. 36, and Stide had done one as well. Still we've been quite busy with the other 18, and we've not yet finished. Fortunately Jelle has now made a number of them as well. Anyway, on this blog you can read about Blind Man, Woman with Clubfoot, Wise Maiden with Cross, Foolish Maiden with Oil Can and Supreme Commander In Chief.

    Corbels for the Tower

    Since in March 2019 the Eusebius Church tower is scheduled to be completed, those sculptures had absolute priority. I've presawn some of the corbels and carved a set of them for the North- and south side of the tower, such as a Woman with Tulips, a Man with Bird, a Man with Ears of Corn, a Woman with two Doves, a Cat with Wings and an Bird beast. Sawing work was mostly done on the corbels from the west side of the tower (12 heads and 5 large corbels), but those were all carved by Stide. Time to once again visit to the scaffolds more to go…

    Read here the annual overview 2019.

  • Finally another update!

    Dom Church, Utrecht, Eusebius, Latest projects, Restoration, Saint John's Cathedral, coat of arms
    step 5: the finished coat of arms in Bentheimer sandstone

    Storm before the silence

    After my last post on this blog, it has remained silent for far too long here. But not because I haven't done anything! On the contrary, it's been way too busy to report it all.

    So I've been working on the carving of another coat-of-arms in Bentheimer sandstone. The design was almost the same as the previous one, but this one would would be suspended from a wall. Therefore, it was carried out lighter, without an edge to the relief and with a thinner base of 3 cms thick.

    Flying Buttress Figurines

    flying buttress figurines as well
    Blind man

    After that, I went on with the next set of flying buttress figurines for St. Eusebius's Church. Last year I've carved 24 of these for 4 flying buttresses on the north side of the church, around the theme of Noah's Ark. This year the four flying buttresses on the south are up. No, three, because a flying buttres with 7 trumpet angels have in november 2016 already been copied by me. We started this time with a series which was originally designed and carved by George van der Wagt, round 1954.

    The theme of this group is the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. Van der Wagt has portrayed this by carving a group of lame, crippled, blind and stricken people into the tufa. But I honestly do not see the connection of this with the blessings of Jesus in the Bible. Van der Wagt felt that it should be strongly angled so as to get a clear silhouette from below. But after fifty years it has become very difficult to even see what it's supposed to be, even from up close. Of one of the sculptures, of a Woman with a Clubfoot, only one quarter was left. This one I needed to reconstruct before I could copy it.

    Gallery

    To the next flying buttress statue.

    A new team member

    I was quite busy with carving the coat-of arms, the griffins and the flying buttress figurines, and much more would arrive later. It looked as if it would be to much to handle all by myself. My colleague Stide was doing sculpture parts for the tower of St. Eusebius's church, and my other colleague Serge was working on his own commissions, so I was looking for a solution. And that came in the person of Jelle. Jelle was trained as an artist and knows his way well around stone. Because there is always more to be learned in this trade, it's a beautiful combination: Jelle will help carving the sculptures and meanwhile will learn some tricks of the trade. For me it's also nice that this handicraft will not die out for the Netherlands after my generation of three colleagues has left. Below Jelle in action with the copying saw. This figurine will then be carved by himself.

    We also did some sawing work on some flying buttress figurines and on 12 heads for the west facade of the tower , which are currently being carved by Stide.

    Myself, carving a flying buttress image that was just presawn

    Four flying buttresses on the north side

    Jelle and I together made these figurines taking each a turn. Work on the griffins is on hold now for a while, because the church has a completion date set: In March the four arches should be complete and the tower finished. In 2020 the other forty flying buttress figurines on the other side of the church will follow. Just, to taste the atmosphere and see what has already been created for this church, at visit to the scaffolds of St. Eusebius's church.

    Stonemasonry work

    Carving from a block

    If I felt that I was busy, then apparently someone else can still surpass that : I was called by the restoration stonemasons if I could take on part of their work, because they were even more busy. Construction is going well in the Netherlands. Everywhere there's a lack of professionals and contractors don't know how to finish all that work. When it rains there, it will be dripping on me, too. A few years ago I sometimes had some months without work, but that time is long past. So now I'm doing a -for me- quite unusual job, the stone carving of a block that is: the lower part of a finial, including the profiles, trefoils, pointed arches and crockets. After that, the carving of the ornaments follows.

    accurate measurements

    I have of course been doing this once before. But that was almost 15 years ago, so I had to really think about how I should handle this. For there is indeed a real difference between stonemasonry parts and sculptural work. Stonemasonry is everything you can mark on the block of stone from a template. It is tight, geometric work, for which you need to work very systematically to keep everything exactly perpendicular and crisp. Sculptural parts are more organic. This involves shapes, style, tension in the lines, elegance, and the like. These two complement each other; in Gothic architecture, the one can not exist without the other . In this block the ornaments would fall under sculptural work, and everything else is stonemasonry work. More about this soon pinnacle part.

    Dom Church, Utrecht

    Finally, I, Stide and Serge climbed the Cathedral of Utrecht in connection with a quotation. Gorgeous, impressive place, as seen from above!

    carving ornaments
    Dom Church in Utrecht from above

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