Tales of Resilience
By Linda Marsh
Cast bronze
$32,000
In most of my figurative works, I use live models as reference in my Northeast Minneapolis studio. As the sculpture starts to take shape, inevitably a narrative forms in my head and it starts to tell a story. The finished piece is always different than the model that was in front of me. In the case of Tales of Resilience, my model was in the pose of Michelangelo’s Libyan Sibyl on the Sistine Chapel, where in Classical mythology, foretold the coming of the day when that which is hidden shall be revealed. This origin story inspired me to use Hansel and Gretel as an allegory with a “moral of the story” that is very relevant today. I spent a year sculpting the clay. As with all my sculpture, once I’m happy with the clay, I do not turn it over to a foundry. I accomplish every step of the lost wax method of bronze casting myself in partnership with my husband. We make our own molds. We pour, chase and gate our own waxes. We invest and burn out the wax, and we pour our own bronze. We are fortunate to have access to a small foundry where we can perform this work. We take the raw castings to our home workshop where we grind, weld and chase the bronze. And finally, we sand and patina the assembled bronzes ourselves.