'Underground Gallery' feature bronze bowl artist

By: Katrina Segers, staff writer

Bronze bowls by Robert Anders will be on exhibit until Aug. 15.

is an artist … of glorified fruit bowls, as he jokingly calls them.

Robert Anders

The bronze bowls he produces using lost wax casting are "very durable," Anders said.

"I got the idea from some jade bowls that I saw in the Denver Art Museum that were just exquisite," he said. "The bowl is such an ancient shape. What do you think the first thing a person would make just living in nature? Probably a club or a knife or something like that … and then a bowl, so it had a great, primitive nature to me. That’s what this is about to me, great, functional art, but they’re really just fruit bowls."

Anders has a sense of humor about his art, but is passionate about art, too. He is also a painter, potter and master printer of etching, intaglio and gravure.

"Art has to stand on its own," he said. "If you have to explain it, how good is it?"

He said fans of his work would probably beg to differ about his fruit bowl explanation and it seems museum curators might as well, since his work is currently on display at the Kansas City Artist’s Coalition "Underground Gallery," 201 Wyandotte St., Kansas City, Mo., and will be exhibited at the 2008 International Sculpture Invitational Exhibition in Loveland, Colo.

Anders, 56, Leawood, said he is enthusiastic about showing his work in Kansas City.

"I’ve been working on this collection for about five years," he said. "Every artist loves to show their work. And every artist loves to sell their work, but it’s not about the money. If there were no payday I would still do it."

The mold for each bowl melts away when the bronze is poured.

"I throw the wax on a potter’s wheel and I don’t know of anyone else who does that," Anders said. "I manipulate it with heat and clay."

After the wax forms a bowl shape and cools, Anders uses hand tools to carve, pierce and alter the form into the pattern he desires.

Once finished with the mold, he sends it to a commercial foundry where it is cast in a plaster-like material. He then pours bronze over the mold.

"The wax just vanishes and is replaced with the bronze," he said.

Bronze, Anders said, melts at around 1,750 degrees, but must heat to 2,250 degrees in order to be poured.

When the bronze has cooled, a sand blaster is used to remove the shell and the rough castings are returned to Anders. He then does chasing, which consists of grinding, filing, and smoothing with files and emery boards. The final step in the process is patina, when the color is added.

"They used to, back in ancient times, they would actually throw them in the ocean and the salt water would have a chemical affect on them and it would turn them beautiful colors of green because bronze has a cooper in it … it would rust them this beautiful red," Anders said.

For every successful bowl there is a disaster.

"There’s a 50 percent kill rate," he said. "I usually send them in groups of four and will get one or two back, sometimes none. Lost wax is fraught with ways to go wrong."

The end result of either perfection or utter disaster goes well with what Anders said is a mix of randomness and control in his designs.

"I get inspiration from natural forms … organic shapes in nature," he said.

Anders’ interest in natural shapes is seen in a series of bowls adorned with trees.

"The trees work with the bronze itself," he said. "The bronze just flows, like the branches of a tree."

The bowls in their finished form weigh about 10 pounds, measure 16 to 20 inches and have a deep full sound, similar to a bell, when tapped.

Anders said his bowls are like his "babies" and he often calls the foundry to check on their progress.

"These are all one of a kind," he said. "That’s what makes them rare and as a result they are quite expensive."

The price of one of Anders’ bowls is $1,500. "It always dazzles me when people (buy one)," he said. "That’s a lot of money for a fruit bowl."