Vulture in Flight

" I'm not actually CHASING that ambulance--I'm just CIRCLING it!" is the title for my new steel sculpture of a vulture / lawyer.

(Click on photos to see enlarged versions)

I sell more vultures than you might think ---- to lawyers! (Lawyers with a sense of humor, obviously.)

Varnell, the Vulture measures 4 ft 3 inches (130 centimeters) high from wing tip to wing tip; 3 ft 2 inches long (97 cent.); and, 3 ft deep (91 cent.) Mounted on the square steel tube as in the photo left, Varnell is 5 ft 6 inches high (168 cent.)--anbody who purchases him can have a pole of varying length to make him higher in the air. I have not tried it, but I suppose he could be altered to hang on an office wall.

Generally, my sculptures of large birds have been posed perched on a large log or standing. This time, I wanted to stretch my wings, pun intended, and solve the technical problems of doing a large bird in flight. I have commissions to do several vultures, but this flying vulture is not one of them.

(click on photos to see enlarged versions)

If I simply made a bird and mounted it on a long steel pole, it would be visually uninteresting--you'd just be looking at the under side of the sculpture. I decided a bird swooping around in a turn at a steep angle allows the viewer to see the whole piece, head and eyes included, and it still looks natural. Too, it does not require as long a pole to be mounted on. The technical problem of the wings' stability was solved by using thicker than usual sheet steel, two hidden braces and struts. Steel feathers actually break up wind flow over the wings so they don't actually act as wings and flap (metal fatigue would break them like bending a coat hanger in two otherwise.)

The vulture is made of an old freon tank (used to add cooling gas to air conditioners and refrigerators) for the body, a spring, and the end of a stair railing for the neck, sheet metal for the wings, EMT (Electro Mechanical Tube) for the upper legs, rebar for the lower legs, and cut masonry nails for the toes. The head is made of had forged sheet steel with bits of welding rod for pin feathers and steel welding spatter for texture. The whole piece was painted with black metal primer, then painted with outdoor sign painters' enamels. Finally, it is clear coated commercially with a two part acrylic paint similar to that used on automobile bodies.

I am responsible for the amateurish photos of the vulture in progress in my studio. I'd like to thank and compliment my friend and next door neighbor, Laurence Lynn, a professional photographer who owns http://www.laurencelynnphotography.com/ for the wonderful studio photos he took of the finished piece.

(click on photo to see enlargement)

Just for amusement, I used one of Laurence's vulture photos, dropped the studio background, replicated the vulture, and pasted the group over a photo I took in the Virginia mountains this summer. Then I re set the daylight to sunset and merged all the layers to make a flock of steel vultures at sunset in the mountains.

Some people have asked me about my working methods and what's my studio like--I have posted some photos of the steel vulture being built along with a few back ground photos of one of the three rooms in my workshop/studio at http://flicker.com/photos/joelhaas Look for the photo album on the right labeled "steel vulture."