Mill Creek Studios Manufacturing Process


Mill Creek Studios - Manufacturing Process

			What is it made of? How long did it take for the artist to create? Do you fire each piece? How are they painted? These are some of the commonly asked questions at an artist appearance or trade show.

To begin with, any artwork is born in the artists' imagination, and takes form with an idea or concept. Some artists will sit down and sketch their ideas on paper to further formulate their concept. Others will begin by "sketching" their ideas three dimensionally in clay. For many artists, this is the most inspirational time. This is when the composition is established and the mood, movement, and emotion are created giving the sculpture "life". This is what is most important, not all the detail that will come later. This is the time when the artist is "interpreting" what he knows and feels about his subject, and "communicating" that feeling to the eventual viewer.

The entire creative process may take a week or many months depending on the size of the work, its complexity, the artists' familiarity with the subject, and obviously, the amount of time dedicated to that project. Many artists, myself included, will work on several projects simultaneously in order to maintain a fresh perspective each time they touch a piece.


			When the artwork is completed, Mill Creek's team of gifted and knowledgeable mold makers take over to create a flexible rubber mold of the original clay which will capture every detail with fingerprint accuracy.

During this process, the clay original is damaged and lost forever. The initial and all important "master" mold of the original is then used to create subsequent production molds for the edition castings.

Now, at last! What is it made of? Very simply, each piece is composed of a blend of fine resins and pure white alabaster, or alabaster and porcelain powders. When "catalyzed" and poured into a mold, this resin composition will go through a chemical reaction creating intense heat and causing the mixture to harden and expand into every crevasse and detail of the mold. When cooled and removed from the mold, the result is an exact duplicate of the original art.


		At this point each casting is examined, detailed, and cleaned to prepare the sculpture to receive a natural palette of the finest artist acrylics applied layer upon layer by skilled artisans. The beautiful finish which results is designed to enhance and define all the subtle detail of the artwork, as well as contribute to the life and realism of the subject.