Other Projects: Bob Rauschenberg, James Turrell, and Roy Lichtenstein

I was introduced to Bob Rauschenberg, James Turrell, and Roy Lichtenstein while working at Saff Tech Arts in Oxford, MD. Turrell was working on his Roden Crater Project in Arizona and I was wondering what he had in mind for us to do for him. It turns out we were going to work in wax with silkscreen and mica dust. The images were maps of the interior of his crater!

Turrell piece with wax and mica dust

This large screen will give you a sense of the scale

Roy’s projects were both two and three dimensional. His “Water Lily” Series were silkscreened images on partially swirled stainless plates. There are six images in all — ranging in size from 43 1/2” X 38 1/2” to 58 X 104 3/16”.

Roy Lichtenstein’s “With Cloud”

Conrad painting Lichtenstein’s “Yellow Cup”

One of his sculptural pieces was a free standing bronze which was nickel plated and then painted. After that we did a huge wall piece made of aluminum which was cut out and colored with paint and pigmented wax.

Bronze Lichtenstein sculpture being painted

Bob had a great studio on Captiva Island in Southwest Florida. All three projects I worked on with him took place there. We hauled all the materials we would need down there in the shop van. He also had his own crew and of course a large supply of art making supplies.

Conrad pours hot wax for image transfer on a “Shale” piece as Bob looks on

The first project was a pair of silkscreen images which Bob also painted on after these were printed. His inventory of screens was the result of many years of shooting pictures from all his world-wide travels. His in-house welder made all the frames for these and other pieces. At the same time we also worked on his “Eco-echo” sculpture which is a motion- activated windmill.

The third project was titled, “Shales.” It was an image transfer into wax, which the Saff Tech crew discovered and developed. The photo images were transferred from their support paper into hot wax.

Rauschenberg’s “Shales”

Working alongside these three artists was a wonderful experience and I learned a lot about color use and new materials.

Applying finishing touches on Roy’s sculpture