• Of Serge van Druten, two athletes and an angel

    background, Restoration, Saint John's Cathedral
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    Serge Van Druten Carving A Marble Rooster
    Sculptor Serge van Druten, 1967-2025. Photo: Hugo Rikken, FullScreen Film

    A difficult request

    In the summer of 2022 I was confronted with a difficult request. My dear colleague Serge van Druten↑ was working on the two limestone statues for the restoration of the Scholten monument in the Stadspark in Groningen. But it didn't go well, he had to be operated on his back and wasn't able to work for a while.

    We agreed that he could work in my studio after the operation, so that we could help him move the statues and help him out- if needed. He'd be starting up very cautiousy and very slowly start working again. And as planned, we got moving. But after a only few days it went wrong: All the ironwork in his back broke off and he had to be operated on again. There was some pressure to this job, it had to be delivered on time, and he asked me if I wanted to finish it. Of course I would have preferred that he could have done it himself, while enjoying working in his own studio. A while earlier I had already carved an angel for him, also because of a surgery. Of course you'd help out a colleague, but knowing that this work was his passion and that he always used to dive into it with a lot of energy, I had a very double feeling about it.

    A long series of operations

    Serge van Druten in 2008

    That back operation later turned out to be one in a long series. He went in and out of the hospital for more than three years, over and over again, and to make it more difficult, he also contracted a degenerative muscle disease. He was never able to sculpt again. I've known Serge since 1993 and from 1995 to 2010 I used to work with him on a daily base, that's why I was very sad when he passed on Wednesday 22 January 2025 , in hospital, 57 years old. He was a special, expressive person, an artist at heart, and has left me with many good memories.

    Car against the monument

    The damaged Scholten monument after the collision. copyright 2020 Feiko van der Veen

    The Scholten monument in the Stadspark in Groningen was erected in 1931 for industrialist Jan Evert Scholten, as a gift from his friends. Scholten had donated this city park to the city, so that's probably why they considered it a good place for the monument. The Sculptor Abraham Hesselink carved most parts for the monument, which consists of a pedestal with a bust of Scholten on it. This is flanked by two walls on which bronze plaquettes are mounted that refer to horse breeding and trot racing, two of Scholten's favourite pastimes. Next to the pedestal are two children in sportswear and on the corners of the monument the coat-of-arms of Stad en Ommelanden have been placed. It has sat there all this time, decaying a little bit over time, Until on Sunday morning 20 September 2020 a car against crashed into the monument with a huge bang and caught fire. The driver was killed instantly.

    Reconstruction

    The two recovered original statues on the truck. Photo: Henk Tammens

    The monument needd to be restored. The two statues were considerably damaged and after some consultation ended up at Serge's place to be reconstructed and resculpted in French limestone. All loose parts were kept on Serges request, so that he could fit them together and supplement the missing pieces with plaster. After reconstructing the statues, he coloured the plaster with acrylic paint, so that it was almost impossible to see that it was all repairs. He ordered the new stone and asked me if I could cut out the two statues on my copying saw machine. Because this machine is a contour saw machine with a saw blade of 40 cm and therefore cannot copy all all of the details, the sides of the statues would not be properly copied, but that was not a real setback. Serge was enough of a professional to easily take care of that.

    Copying

    I contour sawed the two statues out of a new block of limestone. The horizontal saw blade could not copy the space between the arm and the back side, but most details were neatly cut out. Then Serge came and started carving the first statue, taking it easy, starting on the young male figure first. After Serge needed to pull out, the sculptures sat there for a long time. Eventually we came to a decision, We worked out a fee and I carveded the sculpture for him. The carving job was considerably simplified by the sawing machine, But as you can see, there is still plenty of measuring and carving to do before you can call it a full-fledged copy.

    After that, I copied the girl. They're a couple of two stiff athletes, And especially the girl just stands there as if she is doing shopping instead of throwing hammers. The young man with his peculiar eyes looks a little Indonesian, also because of his build. A typical image of that time, shall we say.

    Gallery

    (Read on below!)

    Serge as a sculptor

    Serge climbing one last time into the construction lift, crutches and all, At Saint John's Cathedral, to see his angels up close. 2022. Photo: Roel van der Aa/BD

    I also collaborated a lot with Serge van Druten after the years that we were employed at the Mooy sculpture firm in Amersfoort together, among other things for the St John's Cathedral in Den Bosch, The Netherlands (statues and angels), the St. Eusebius's Church in Arnhem (the Netherlands) (carving ornaments), the Dom Cathedral in Utrecht (tuffstone crockets and large crockets in basalt lava) and of course a lot for the Utrecht Dom Tower in Utrecht (finials, gargoyles, crockets and ornaments).

    Video portrait of a sculptor

    But Serge also had his own projects, Such as its facade reliefs for the commemoration of the landing of St. Boniface in the Netherlands. If you want to know more about this, I'd especially recommend watching the videos that Hugo Rikken from Fullscreen Film made in Serge's studio. A beautifully recognizable portrait of a craftsman and artist, that can be found on the channel of Fullscreen Film on YouTube, by entering the name of Serge van Druten, or by clicking on this link to go through the entire playlist: Videos about Serge van Druten on YouTube.

    An angel being passed on

    Serge was, as I wrote above, suffering from crumbling back vertebrae even before the Groningen athletes. Because of an operation, he asked me 2022 if I wanted to carve the very last of the five angels he would copy into new stone, so the last one would be finished by me. He had reconstructed this angel with plastiline and I carved it in new stone for him. The committee came to inspect it t my place and everything was to their satisfaction.

    This angel was neo -gothic and date from the 1880. It was carved at the time in Udelfanger sandstone, and the intention was to do it the same way again this time around.. Only at the time they had carved it with the layers upright unfortunately. This means that, just like with Pope Leo and Thomas Aquinas, the layers of the stone are running through the sculpture vertically. This causes the danger that whole slices of stone could come down at once. It was quite a challenge for the restoration team to find a block in the quarry from which 1 entire angel could be made. The layer thickness in the quarry (the bank) averages only about 90 cms wide, and these angels are 125 cms tall. But it worked out just fine!

    Gallery: In Principio Erat Verbum-angel, Den Bosch

    (Read on below!)

    Gallery: Of Serge van Druten, sculptor

  • An angel and a Shivalingam

    Latest projects, Ov1, Restoration, Saint John's Cathedral, temple
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    fine sanding the Shivalingam

    It's not all about carving (flying buttress no.)sculptures in the Sculptor's Workshop. Last week I copy-sawed an angel and made a Shivalingam.

    Shivalingam

    polishing the lingam
    the sanding and 'sweetening’ of the lingam

    A customer told me he would like to own a Shivalingam. Not because he has a special religious connection with it, but he just liked the shape, he said. Now he still had a piece of Black Swedish granite lying around, from which it could be made. He himself drew the outline on a piece of drawing board. I traced this contour onto a piece of plywood, which allowed me to cut this shape out of the granite with my copying saw.

    Fortunately I did not have to polish the lingam, but after the copysawing I spent more than a day of sanding the stone. He wanted it to be finely sanded up to grit 200. The most difficult thing is to get all false dents out of the oval shape, so that a nice smooth shape is created. You can feel it best with your eyes closed. During the work I sang all the Shivabhajans that came to mind, a beautiful meditation.

    What is a Shivalingam?

    A Shivalingam is an egg-shaped stone, a symbol for God in his unformed state of being. The male principle of Being-Awareness-Bliss (Sat-Chit-Ananda), resting in itself, all-encompassing but unformed. Often this egg-shaped stone is placed in a yoni or panipitha (water seat), a kind of foundation that is a symbol of the feminine principle (Shakti). The Shiva- aspect is Being, Shakti is Becoming. Shakti stands for the expression in all-that-is, the entire creation. So the same energy is Shiva when it is unformed, and the moment it decides to unfolds itself into full creation, you get the feminine creation energy, the Shakti. These are two aspects of the same energy. During rituals, Shiva is worshiped by pouring water and milk over it.

    Read here a number of posts about the lingams and panipithas I made earlier.

    An angel in two attempts

    The block is cut in half and is upside down for gluing

    Then there was the sandstone angel I was going to copysaw for my colleague Serge. It is a commission from St. John's Cathedral, similar to my statues of Thomas Aquinas and Pope Leo the Great. He will make a fine copy of this pre-sawn angel again . Last time, Jelle sawed a similar angel, read here now.

    However, it was a chore with a few snags. A few months ago I received a large block of Udelfanger sandstone for this angel. I immediately thought I saw something that wasn't right, and sure enough: the block was more than 10 centimeters too small!

    After some deliberation it was decided to attach the bottom 15 centimeters of the statue separately. The reasons are the same as I explained earlier with Thomas Aquinas and Pope Leo: preferably they have the layering (the layers in the block of stone) run horizontally through the statue, instead of vertically, because otherwise whole slices can suddenly fall off. In contrast, you could argue that the thin wings might have been better made from vertical layers, because for that part that position is actually more favorable. It remains a struggle to find the best solution.

    Cracked!

    crack in sandstone block
    the crack runs right through the entire block
    at the top left and top right a large crack is visible in the block
    from the left- and right a large crack is visible in the block

    So I had recieved a block of stone that was way too big, but not tall enough. I cut it lengthwise with my concrete chainsaw in two pieces, and made a separate base from the lower part of the spare. I glued it to the bigger piece and started copy-sawing. But it soon turned out that the small black line I had found was a big crack, that ran through the block, from top to bottom. Oops! I put the block aside and made some phonecalls, and a week later I received a better block.

    Second try

    the block of stone is cut in half with the chainsaw and glued. The plywood contour templates are there for the sizes
    the second block of stone is cut in half with the chainsaw and glued. The plywood
    contour templates are next to it for the sizes

    I cut up this block lengthwise with the chainsaw as well. Then I hoisted it upside down onto the copy-sawing machine, where I cut a nice flat surface. The spare part also underwent this treatment, and I cut a slice of about 20 cms from it. I was asked to glue these two pieces together. But if you have been reading along for a while, you'll know that I can't just put a thick layer of epoxy glue between them. You'd get a waterproof layer that will cause all kinds of problems.

    I put both pieces upside down. After I made the surfaces to be glued as flat as possible, I prepared a special mortar in the right colour. I applied this thin mixture on the surface and lowered the smaller block onto it. For just a little while I was able to move that block, until the parts suddenly sucked tight .

    clay bowls with poured epoxy
    drilled holes with stainless steel pins and poured epoxy

    It worked, a minimal, permeable connection was made. After the weekend, the mortar had cured and I drilled two deep holes with the diamond drill. In these, two stainless steel rods were glued with epoxy. A day later, everything had set and I was able to turn the block and start copy-sawing the sculpture.

    Careful

    step 1 and 2 of the pre-sawing process. an angel in Udelfanger sandstone
    roughly presawn (at the top) and medium fine (at the bottom)

    It was not for nothing that this angel was to be replaced: it was heavily weathered and Serge had filled in all the missing parts with modeling material. That stuff is easy to remove afterwards, because it never hardens. But as far as I am concerned it is very difficult to work like this. I had to hoist and move the statue a few times, so I had to be very careful not to distort anything. And it's extra difficult during copy-sawing, because I could easily push through the surface of the clay with the feeler disc. I prefer plaster or hard mortar for repairs, because then I have to be much less careful. Fortunately, I managed to do it with a lot of patience.

    You can see in the photos of the end result that I was very careful especially at the nose.

    If I'd pushed through the clay there, this would have also happened on the cutting side, in the stone. One saw cut that ends up a little too deep, would create a lot of problems. In that case, the whole head will have to be adjusted, and be made further back. So rather a fraction too much material than too little in that place! And it turned out that the glue seam was almost invisible, you really need to know where it is, to spot it. It might end up a bit more visible in the sanded end result, but even then it will barely be visible.

    copy-sawed angel from Udelfanger sandstone

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