Condor

Condor,

I suppose I could write a novel on this project and give me time as I will. Suffice to say that I respect any public art for the sheer improbability of it ever happening.

Here is Bart Kenworthy, scupltor, as he contemplates the bird. Bart worked his tail off putting the big bird together in clay and just like a Condor, Bart's one tough bird as well.

The Condor Project was sponsored by a local not-for-profit organization; the Pacific County Friends of Lewis and Clark. They formed up about a decade ago to sponsor and support educational programs and projects that had some connection to the Lewis and Clark era. To get the Condor done meant raising money, finding a sculptor, finding a location, getting the sculpture finished, mounted, etc. This was completed in the fall of 2008 and the Condor is finished and proudly displayed at the Port of Ilwaco (just west of the ShoreBank Building).

So...how to make a condor? Well..first Bart does up the condor in clay. Then a mold maker turns the clay into molds which are then turned into forms to make wax molds that can be cast (lost wax process).

Fresh out of the molds, the parts look pretty clean and not to impressive. Here are some pieces of the condor including the tail and whale bones. The fellow on the left is welding a whale vertebrate together. This is exacting work as the entire piece must look exactly like a vertebrate with no sign of it being welded. Which then is assembled into the "backbone" so to speak. This became part of the base of the sculpture.

Then the pieces are "mocked up" as the chasers begin to figure out how to assemble the final sculpture and weld it together. As you can see, we are clearly getting to looking like a bird.

"And in the end....."