Arts
By Anastacia Grenda
‘Searching for Consensus’
Artist Howard Hitchcock,
Huntington BeachBackground
The retired professor of art creates his cast-bronze sculptures using ceramic shell casting, a process originally developed for aircraft manufacturing, that he honed during his years teaching at Cal State Long Beach. He even wrote the book on it: “Out of the Fiery Furnace” [William Kaufmann, 1986].
Creation
Hitchcock crafts a model in wax and takes it to a foundry, where a ceramic mold is formed around it by dipping it repeatedly in a slurry to form a thick shell. It’s then placed in a hot kiln, the wax is flushed out, and melted bronze is poured into the mold. After the mold is broken, Hitchcock does the finishing work to complete the sculpture.
InspirationThe sculpture illustrates the gender gap: The female figures point one way while their male counterparts point in the opposite direction; the wheels represent a never-ending circle. The form of this sculpture was born out of necessity. While teaching at Long Beach, Hitchcock cast his sculptures in the campus kiln, which was fashioned from a 55-gallon drum—the only pieces that would fit were tall and narrow.
See It
Hitchcock’s sculptures and paintings will be displayed Dec. 2 through Jan. 4
at Sandstone Gallery, 384 N. Coast Highway #A, Laguna Beach, 949-497-6775,
www.sandstonegallery.com. To see more of his work, visit
www.orangecoastmagazine.com/hitchcock. Front and Center
The French Collection
Some people go antiquing. Then there’s Howard Knohl. The Anaheim Hills resident has amassed an astounding collection of historical antiques, and a fraction of it is part of the “Treasures of Napoleon” exhibit at the Muzeo.
A look by the numbers:
100,000 - plus Antiques in Knohl’s collection.
5,000 - plus Pre-1700, English-language, first-edition books Knohl owns.
1984 Year he started his collection, with a focus on European history.
1810 Year the urn “Beloved to Napoleon” was created.
More than 300 Pieces in the “Napoleon” exhibit.
34-by-30 Size, in inches, of Paul Delaroche’s “Napoleon Crossing the Alps”; Knohl considers this version of the painting the show’s best piece.
The exhibit runs through Jan. 8 at the Muzeo, 241 S. Anaheim Blvd., Anaheim, 714-95-MUZEO (714-956-8936), www.muzeo.org.Tidbit
Hold the PhoneThe O.C. Museum of Art offers “guide by cell” tours of “The Moving Image: Scan to Screen, Pixel to Projection II”