When one thinks of American Flag , they probable don’t think of a beautiful wood carved American flag sculpture. I was invited up to a potential clients home, of which an estate would have been more fitting, but who says that… “Come on up to my estate”. I entered a large indoor arena, of which I quickly became quite enamored by the quality and beauty. Rustic beams and horse stalls with sturdy iron bars and paved walkways. It was clear this was a first class facility. The gentleman began to tell me about how they use the arena and then said that he wanted American flag art placed at the foot of the area. “Something large to bring color into the space largely dominated by wood tones” he said. His original thought was a large scale barn-wood flag. Although it might be fitting for an arena I suggested a large scale carved American flag. “Carved” he said… Yes sir carved.
This is a beautiful facility and not only would the rustic reds and blues warm it up and bring life to the place , but It would have movement that you just wouldn’t get from an ordinary piece of American flag art. My mind wandered for a moment, immediately picturing the movement of Rodeo Queen galloping around the arena with the American Flag rapidly whipping about as thousand of screaming fans pay homage to all our flag represents. Snapping back to earth I exclaimed… “I’m picturing hand hammered steel stars and movement from waves carved into its surface, an Ol’ Glory kind of feel”. Just like that, the project was born. We went on to talk about the structure and possible accommodations that may need to be made in order to install it and left that day with my wheels turning rapidly. Projects like this often take a fair amount of time to bring to fruition, but I was excited none the less. The plan was to make a small scale model out of basswood and nail down all the details and then supersize the sculpture from 3’x5’ to 10″ x 19” yes, that’s right TEN BY NINETEEN. This of course was going to be a massive undertaking, with many specialized jigs and custom modifications to process, glue, carve and move this massive work of art. This site visit was shortly after my studio burned to the ground and he was aware that it was going to be some time, before I was ready to start such a project. The studio was completed in September of 2020 and the project began a couple months after that.
I can remember the phone calls to suppliers and their reaction when I told them was I was doing. “You’re doing what” one vendor said…. “wow, that going to be one big project”. I was able to source wood for the small model locally even though most of the Basswood comes from the east coast. I used 4/4 material which is about 1” thick boards. Each of them would be processed to square up all edges before gluing them up into what would be a 4” x 36” x 60” slab. While constructing the smaller American flag I was constantly imagining the much larger flag, asking myself what considerations will need to be made and trying my best to foresee the potential problems ahead. Glue up’s this large are typically done for massive beams and support structures not American Flag Art. The open time of most glue is around 15 min, which means that once the glue is applied you have no more than 15 min to get it clamped. This may sound adequate, but I assure you it is not! I would have to assemble a team of people to expedite the glue up, and purchase specialized equipment for applying the glue quickly. I would have to purchase Dozens of bar clamps and bars made to accommodate the length necessary to clamp them together. I would have to fabricate intermediate supports for the bar clamps to keep them flat as the weight of the American flag art would surely cause them to sag.
One of the challenges in sculpting an American flag art in motion is that the stripes have inconsistent and erratic movement making it difficult to predict the pattern. I looked for a photograph of a flag in motion, that had just the right amount of movement, but maintained a relatively rectangular form. Once that was done, I projected it onto the wood surface and mapped out the highs and lows as if it were a topographic map. Once that was complete it was taken out to the carving bay, where the once flat slab of basswood marked up with crazy topographic lines, was transformed into its first basic form. This is the foundation of the movement we will see when the stripes and color come into play.
Now that the movement of the American Flag Art was established is was time to bring it to life with stars n stripes. I had fabricated a a jig to hold the sculpture upright and was able to use one of my long awaited studio additions, “Floor Receivers” basically they are the same as what you would insert a trailer hitch into a vehicle, although they are set deep into the concrete foundation. This allows me to place any 2×2 square tubing into the floor securely, without any support and make any sorta jig I can imagine. This set up not only allowed me to hold the American Flag Art, but to regulate the height for carving and finishing as well.
The next step was to project the stars and stripes for transfer. One crazy line after another and each of the 50 stars marked out for carving. Lucky for me Basswood is a very light colored wood making my transferred lines show up quite nicely. OK.. step back and let’s see. Ah yes, this will do. This transformation is exciting because the American flag art you imagined is finally coming to life, confirming in my head what I had pictured from the beginning.
To the left: The majority of the carving is now complete, now lines are sharpened and the surface is sanded with 220 sandpaper to make the surface smooth and uniform, allowing the woodgrain to show through the finish to come.
Now the stars, They are fairly small in this model measuring only 1.25 inched wide, and so I plasma cut out 50 stars, only I made tabs on them so that I could hold them while hammering them out on the anvil. once the hammered look was achieved they were cut off and ground smooth on the edges. This was a little tedious, but gratifying to see the results. The stars were going to be attached with small brads, so small pilot hole was also drilled into the center of each star. A clear coat of Krylon was applied to the stars to protect their appearance.
The American Flag Art was really coming together, the lines were flowing elegantly and it felt good to sweep my hands across its smooth flowing surface. After hours and hours of sanding, the flag it nearly complete and all that remains is the color. This is both a nerve racking and vitally important step, due to the fact that you have countless hours bringing this sculpture to form and the final result lies solely in my ability to bring this American flag Art to life. You want the wood to be the star of the show, painting it beyond recognition would be disrespectful. To give it an “Ol Glory” feel is also important. First off the colors are bright and offensive, and they are applied thin as to show the underlying wood grain. I carefully painted the vast borders between stripe leaving the “white” stripes as natural wood tone and placing red appropriately in its place. This next step is to clear coat the whole thing before applying the glaze. The glaze itself is a bit of an art-form as it needs to be in just the right places to make this American Flag Art pop. This has to be the largest transformation the sculpture takes, partly because its the “grand finally” but also because the final results become evident, everything you worked hard to bring to fruition now becomes evident.
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The sculpture is finally clear coated for protection and the client is absolutely thrilled with the result, however, there is a bit of a sad ending to this story. In the end the larger 10’ x 19’ flag would not be commissioned, as we could not agree upon a price to bring the project to life. I’m grateful for the opportunity to make the model and look forward to finding someone or some corporation that wants to see it through. So… Maybe you know of a place, or a person that would be interested in seeing such a project through. If so, please reach out, I would be absolutely thrilled to supersize this model into something really special.
