Sculptor Bridgette Mongeon is creating a monumental bronze sculpture of the Mad Hatter Tea Party. In honor of the 150th Anniversary of “Alice In Wonderland” she is hiding 150 elements in the sculpture.
Alice In Wonderland gets bigger in smaller digitally instead of with mushrooms.
PRESS RELEASE
Alice In Wonderland Gets Bigger and Smaller digitally Instead of With Mushrooms.
March Hare small – printed on a ProJet 660 Pro powder printer by 3DRP
In Lewis Carroll’s book, Alice in Wonderland gets bigger and smaller by eating a mushroom, cake and elixirs of sorts. In sculptor Bridgette Mongeon’s Wonderland, the characters are changing size—digitally.
The Evelyn Rubenstein Park of Bellaire, Texas has commissioned the artist to make eight-foot tall characters placed within the scene of the Mad Hatter Tea Party. Estimated date of delivery of this bronze is just over a year away in fall of 2016. “That short time frame is a monumental task at best, but the digital tools make my job easier and faster,” states Mongeon. The name of the sculpture- Move One Place on is what the Mad Hatter beckons before everyone changes places in the story. The artist hopes visitors to the sculpture will be prompted to do the same.
March Hare large milled at Synappsys Digital Services.
The artist had worked on the creating and selling of the design for three years before she and the park finalized the paperwork. This happened on July 3, 2015, the day before the 150th anniversary of the beloved story of Alice in Wonderland. She explains that her process of creating the digital models for the pitch to the client needed to be quick, as she still had not secured the commission. Mongeon first used Daz, Poser, ZBrush, Mudbox and Photoshop to create the virtual digital scene that won her this commission. Once the idea was sold to the client, the artist moves to traditional clay to finalize the designs and make them her own. The Mad Hatter, Alice, and March Hare are then 3D scanned using the NextEngine 3D Laser Scanner. “I love my NextEngineScanner. It is a bit of work to get good scans, but it saves me time and money to have a dependable, affordable, scanner that I can use right in my studio.” The digital files are once again changed and modified by the artist using MeshLab, Meshmixer andZBrush.
One would think it would be senseless to have a 3D print of the figures if you already have a clay version at the same size. But Mongeon says that having the 3D print created by 3D RP in California was very valuable in her creative process. “The clay is fragile and hard to handle. Also, creating things like a tiny cup and saucer and a pocket watch were much easier to create digitally than trying to sculpt a half inch cup with soft clay. The digital model helps me to refine the design further, and the 3D print puts all of these elements together and gives me something to refer to when the large sculpture comes to the studio.” Mongeon claims that in her workflow she goes back and forth between digitally and traditional sculpting as much as Alice goes between big and small in the Lewis Carroll stories.
Bridgette Mongeon scans her clay maquette with her NextEngine scanner and further works the design in ZBrush
The NextEngine scanner was not the only scanner used in translating the art into a digital world. Mongeon was elated when Evan Lee of Super Solid 3D offered to come in and scan some items using an Artec Structured Light Scanner. “I’m hiding 150 small elements in the scene of The Mad Hatter Tea party. Yes, the project in itself is a huge undertaking and I must be mad as a hatter to decide to create and hide these elements. But is fun to create them and it will be even more fun to find them,” states Mongeon.Super Solid 3D used the Artec scannerto scan a portrait that the artist created and that she will use as one of the hidden elements. (The crying baby in Alice In Wonderland turns into a pig.) Super Solid 3D also scanned Mongeon’s mother’s chair that she will use as the Mad Hatter’s chair in the scene. She is working with Zbrush artist Johannes Huber to work in Zbrush, modify the chair and hide even more elements of the story.” I loved the results of the Artec Scan. One day I might like to try it on my own, however I fear the Artec scanner is over my studio budget at this time, though I am elated to see the results.”
Mongeon uses more tricks in her wonderland of creating to make Alice and her Friends grow to eight-foot tall. She turns the digital files are into Gcode and Computer Numerically Controlled or CNC Milles out the foam at Synappsys Digital Services in Oklahoma and Across the Board Creations in Canada. The pieces then travel back to the artist’s studio. Mongeon documents the carving of the characters and the “hare-raising” event in a recent YouTube video as she reassembles the monumental foam hare.
Once again, Mongeon will use traditional processes in her workflow. She now is carving the foam and adding detail to the sculpture with a fine layer of clay before the scene goes through the lost wax method of bronze casting at Shidoni Foundry in New Mexico. She will continue to document her process of creating the sculpture titled “Move one Place On” sharing it online through her blog and the Finding Alice Sculpture page on Facebook. Once the project is complete she will write about it in a new book.
Mongeon enjoys sharing her process with others. She hopes it will inspire artists to combine the processes and go beyond what the technology is presently doing and what other artist have done. She has written about the processes of incorporating digital techniques in her own studio and the studio of many artists around the world in a new book titled 3D Technology in Fine Art and Craft: Exploring 3D Printing, Scanning, Sculpting and Milling
Bridgette Mongeon has much more to do and share with the creating of the sculpture “Move One Place On.” Stay tuned, she will be sharing her process along the way as she goes further down the rabbit hole.
Speaking at the 150th Anniversary of Lewis Carroll
Seeing the original manuscripts and the many, many artistic interpretations of this story was very inspiring.
I am very honored to be speaking at the 150th Anniversary meeting of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America on April 18th in Austin, Texas. I’ll be sharing information about the monumental sculpture that I am creating of Alice In Wonderland’s Mad Hatter Tea Party. I’ll also be sharing some hints on how to find some of the 150 elements that will be hidden in the sculpture. Of course, I’ll be entertaining suggestions for hidden items as well.
Come with me to Wonderland as I share my adventures of creating this monumental sculpture.
If you have not visited the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas At Austin and seen the wonderful exhibit of Lewis Carroll this is a great opportunity to do so. There are original manuscripts, artwork and much more. The lecture is free and open to the public. However, if you are staying for lunch or dinner you will need to preorder that. The entire agenda for the meeting can be found on the Lewis Carroll website. There is an online pdf of the full agenda including the speaker biographies.
The Harry Ransom Center has done a great job with the Lewis Carroll exhibit. A celebration of the 150th anniversary
The Beginning.
In 2011, Amy Freeman of Freeman Design Associates was working with Jerry Rubenstein on signage for the newly named Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center. She contacted sculptor Bridgette Mongeon about a possible sculpture of Evelyn for the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center. The Rubensteins were looking for an artist to create a bronze sculpture of their mother for the Jewish Community Center. Bridgette documented the creation of Evelyn on a website blog. The Rubensteins and Amy came to her studio, and they all hit it off. At this time, the Rubensteins were also talking about a possible second sculpture of Evelyn for a park. The artist’s focus was on the sculpture for the Jewish Community Center, but she was curious about this mention of a sculpture for a park.
Over the many visits to her studio, Jerry and Linda would share artwork and artists that they discovered. Bridgette assumed these were ideas for the park. One such piece was the Alice In Wonderland sculpture in central park. Over the years, she has received numerous photographs from the Rubensteins of this sculpture, but she has yet to see it for herself. Her wheels began to turn about Alice. She was delighted to find that the story and illustrations were in the public domain. She was even more delighted to find that the story would be celebrating 150 years in 2015. She immediately purchased an The Annotated Alice, which features both stories of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Later she purchased another copy of the annotated Alice. She created a book mark, with the most recent image suggested for the park, strung charms of a tea party to it and presented it to Jerry. Her daughter who is the owner of Diliberto Photo and Design helped. She had so much fun searching for all of these elements and putting them together in this very classy package.
She has sculpted quite a few deceased loved ones. It is her specialty, and she develops a certain connection to the loved ones. In 2014 the Texas Country Reporter came out and created a wonderful segment on this part of her artwork. You can see it on this YouTube video. You could say when doing this type of artwork… she develops a relationship with the deceased, and though she had never known Evelyn, she became friends with her as she created the sculpture for the Jewish Community Center.
Not long after beginning the sculpture of Evelyn in 2012 she began to create digital designs to present to the Rubensteins. She had several designs that she spent hours on and never presented. The one design that had her was Alice. She just kept coming back to Alice.
The interesting thing is that, originally the Rubensteins did not want just a random sculpture, they wanted another portrait of Evelyn. Over time, Bridgette’s thoughts about Alice and her friends won the heart of the Rubensteins. The sculpture has morphed between she and her client, will be a destination spot when people come to Houston. Visitors will enjoy the interaction and the most coveted dining experience in Texas. Evelyn would be proud for all that it represents, family, imagination, literature, creativity, and fun.
Over the next three years, Bridgette modified the designs, and Alice grew from a life-size sculpture to a monumental sculpture with the mad hatter being 8-9 feet tall. At one point she and the Rubensteins talked about making the table much, much larger to accomodate more guests, but instead they brought the size down to this intimate size. Originally she had designed the sculpture to be a mix of materials-bronze and faux bois. Faux bois is concrete that is made to look like wood. The table and benches would be this faux bois. The first designs of the project were going to be a collaboration between Bridgette and two master faux bois artists Donald Tucker and Cindee Klement. The work of these masters is nothing less than yummy, but the client changed the material, desiring all bronze.
In the last of the project designs, Bridgette had created and suggested an additional sculpture of Evelyn on a faux bois bench petting a large grey poodle. The Rubensteins had just lost their long time furry companion and because she loves dogs and also specialize in pet memorials. She thought this might be a good addition to the park. She still hope that one day this additional piece will be added to the park. She loves the idea of Evelyn sitting back and watching everything that was taking place in her special wonderland, and she thought kids would love to interact with the dog as much as the other art. But budget and time were an issue, and they narrowed it down to the characters, table, benches, and podium with the book. To sculpt all of this in such a short amount of time is still a massive undertaking. You can watch the creation of this through this blog and the Finding Alice Facebook Page
The idea of hiding things in the wood was an early decision of the artist. At first she was not going to tell anyone. When she found out it was the 150th anniversary of the story, the “150” becomes a personal challenge for her. Plus, after reading the annotated Alice she realized there were so many hidden things in Lewis Carroll’s original story that she would have much from which to choose. She is delighted to be writing two books on this project one about he process from start to finish and documenting all of the technology used in the creation. The Alice Process book will be very similar to her new book coming called 3D Technology in Fine Art and Craft: Exploring 3D Printing, Scanning, Sculpting and Milling
The other book she will create, after the sculpture is done being sculpted and off to the foundry, is a field guide written in Rhyme and riddle. It is about the 150 hidden elements. Note: this does not mean just 150 hidden things. There are meanings behind the pieces that are a part of the hidden elements. So, take out your Annotated Alice, and watch the process of creating this sculpture. You will have to brush up on these things to be able to completely fill in all of the spaces in the field guide. She will talk about that more on that in a later blog post.
A design is only a design. An artist must sell the idea to their client, and help their client to become so much a part of the creative process that they are invested. In the a case like “Move One Place On” for Evelyn’s Park, which is the title of this sculpture, there are many other things that play a part in when a job can begin. There were committee meetings, city council, permits, budgets, revising designs, modifying estimates, finding vendors, etc, etc. Many of these things were totally out of the artist’s hands. All these needed to be taken care of before things could be finalized with the sculpture. These final details took place on July 3rd,
That means that Bridgette worked for three years on designs, proposals, presentations, budgets, estimates, and revised estimates, enlargements, and changes. She had thought and proclaimed that the project would start “next month” for these three years. There were so many hold ups that she was sure all of her friends and family thought she had made the entire commission up. Believe me, she like Alice, began to wonder if it were all just a part of a dream. She is elated to pronounce that the project officially began on July 3, 2015 the day before the actual 150th anniversary of Alice in Wonderland. What a fitting tribute.
So now you know the morphing and history of this project. Stay tuned to the blog and to the Finding Alice Page to see how we progress from here. If you have not seen the YouTube video on the project, it describes some of the ins and outs of the project and technology better than can be explained right here. Get ready… this should be a curious adventure. Thanks for coming down the rabbit hole with me.