One of Mom's earliest bronzes was of my Opa. Here's her fairly recent recollection of the process: Papa's face had intrigued me since I first met
him, holding a yellow rose to give me.
Teacher Eda [Mueller-Westerhoff] insisted I try a couple of other busts before I tried his
likeness. I prepared a scaffold to hold
the clay and got a cup of coffee ready to occupy him at the table in our
kitchen. He sat for 1/2 hour in our
kitchen on Via Santa Teresa and I worked like mad to catch his essence. When I tried to move to his back or side, he
turned as if I were a photographer. My
German wasn't good enough to explain why I had to look at the back of his head.
Because the sculpture had to look like him for him to like it, it
did. It was amazing. Especially to me. At a short second session, Eric explained to
him that I needed a back view. In that
sitting, I felt satisfied with my work.
Under Eda's direction, I made a waste cast and from it a plaster head.
Then I made a rubber mold from the plaster and had a foundry fabricate the
bronze we have today.//When Papa died, we gave both to Mutti. With her limited sight, pictures didn't evoke
his presence the way the two sculptural portraits did. She could pat his head and tell him
goodnight. She told me she liked the
plaster better than the bronze because it was warmer to the touch.
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