Craig Paul Nowak Sculpture

Craig Paul Nowak

SCULPTURE

My sculpture all centers around life-size faces that are primarily made using ceramic. I make a rubber mold of the faces for casting in various material, including plaster, concrete, and resin. From that mold, I make a plaster mold intended for slip casting multiples in ceramic. I have exhibited them individually, but I prefer exhibiting them in multiples to conceptually talk about community and social issues.

SCULPTURE: Doc

SCULPTURE: Buddy

SCULPTURE: Rachel

PLASTER FACES

Before I can make a ceramic face, I first need to make these plaster faces. To me, they're beautiful in this stage, but I don't generally consider them to be the finished artwork.

I use alginate and plaster gauze to make an impression of a real person's face (example images are below). That impression is then used as a mold to make a single plaster replica of the person. It comes out rough with extra plaster in the nostrils and other areas if the mold is not perfect, but I clean those things up, and because hair doesn't cast well, I usually end up sculpting the eyebrows, hair, and beards back onto the resulting sculpture.

(a video of the clean up process is below)

SLIP CASTING

CERAMIC FACES

After the faces are refined, multiple molds are made. A mold made entirely out of plaster is used for slip casting. Liquid clay is poured into the mold to make the ceramic faces. The plaster sucks the moisture out of the clay, leaving a hollow ceramic shell called greenware. I use this method to make multiple signed and numbered limited editions.

Those editions are then fired in a kiln twice, once to turn them into a solid dry surface called bisque ware and a last time with glaze to give them the clean glossy finish.