William Miles, Bronze Artist

Profile: I play with molten metal and cast exceptionally beautiful bronze sculptures in my workshop. I assemble wax parts and use chemicals and electricity and very hot things. Unfortunately, I have not yet figured out how to make my creations come alive and I am not yet a certified mad scientist. Except on rainy days.

I use jewellery casting equipment to create desktop size bronze sculptures. All my castings are as detailed and precise as any jeweller might create for a custom fabricated gold ring. In fact, I will often use jeweller techniques with different metals and enamel and gemstones and silver and gold plate to add colour and sparkle to my sculptures.

The lost wax casting process that I follow is an ancient method of making a bronze object from an original form shaped in wax. The wax model is put into a steel flask and encased with a silica plaster, also called investment. The flask is then heated in a kiln to melt and vaporize the wax, leaving a void in the plaster that replicates the shape of the model. Molten bronze is poured into the flask and fills the void, thus creating an exact copy of the model in metal.

All my models are crafted in wax. I either carve and create original pieces from wax blocks or I take silicon rubber moulds of existing components to make a wax sculpture that I construct in bronze. Every one of my sculptures is an original hand made casting that differs from every other work that I produce.

My sculptures are designed to provoke and stimulate thought. Each bronze sculpture is personally cast and assembled in my home workshop. My castings have matured from early fantasies into more complex forms that include geometric structure, history, reflection, and mathematical similarities.

My work has been acquired by collectors in Canada, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Scandinavia, and the United States.

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