The Most Beautiful Art Book in the World

We begin 2018 with the wonderful news that the casting book our work was featured in last year has been listed as the number one most beautiful art book in the world!  

We are glad it's not just our opinion that this book is well worth the price tag, and has enormous value to any art fan or art book collector. It is filled with page upon page of gorgeous photographs of all different kinds of casting and one of the most incredibly inspiring books we've seen. 

Check out the entire top ten art book list here on Artnet.com 

And you can purchase your own copy of 'CAST: Art and objects made using humanity's most transformational process' by Jen Townsend and Renée Zettle-Sterling here on Amazon. 

All good things come to those who wait...

I've known plumbers with leaky pipes in their houses, and professional cleaners whose kitchens were pretty grim, by their own admission. I don't judge them one bit, because whatever your profession, if you are as passionate about keeping your clients happy as we are, then using your talents for yourself, your home or your own family always seem to come last. Which is why, even with more than 40 collective years of experience in lifecasting between us, André and I still don't have many casts of ourselves or our own family members. In fact, I've often joked that for all the gorgeous casts I've made of other women, I don't seem to have anything flattering of my own body amongst our collection of work. 

Back in 2005, before André and I were a couple, I actually asked him to help me make a cast of myself to test a new technique I wanted to experiment in. Back then, André was the only other lifecaster within a few counties of me and we'd worked with each other quite a lot already so I trusted him completely to help me achieve this particular artistic goal.

I'd been inspired by the work of another lifecaster from County Durham, called Richard Neal, who to this day remains one of my favourite artists in our field and whose innovative work I have always loved. All those years ago, Richard was experimenting with molten pewter as a lifecasting medium, as well as some gorgeous textured clay pieces. He was kind enough to share his secret method with me at the time and to give me his blessing to have a go myself, which I just couldn't wait to do. So I asked André to help make a mould of my body that I could use to have a go at this incredible technique, which he agreed to do.  

This is me, back in 2005!

The moulding part went well - we opted for a simple back, bottom and thighs cast to give a real sense of my shape. However then life got busy and complicated and instead of getting on with the pewter cast, I had to put the mould in storage and get on with all the other work on my books. This mould sat in the back end of my attic gathering dust for the last 12 and a half years, waiting for me to get around to it. You know those craft projects you always mean to finish and never seem to get around to - I have several on the go at the moment (I WILL finish making those cushions and that narwhal embroidery I started one day). Every time I had to pop to my attic for something I would see it, think 'I must get around to that' and then promptly either forget about it completely or just be too busy with work to even think about making something for myself.

So it was with this mould of my 30-something bottom until last year, when a friend of ours decided to have her own bottom cast but fancied something a little bit different. Having offered her several of the finishes we already do and are known for, I remembered the beautiful pewter technique we'd always meant to have a go at. To my delight she agreed to be my guineapig for the project and I set to work making the mould of her body. However, when it came to it, I was too nervous to risk ruining her mould with molten pewter (that I'd only ever used on very tiny moulds in the past). Then I remembered my own bottom mould up in the attic, being used as a skate park by the local mice, no doubt, and decided now was the perfect time to experiment on this original mould so I could get the hang of things before branching out to my friend's mould. 

I woz here.    

A few scorch marks and singed eyebrows later, I'd more or less perfected the technique Richard had taught me 12 and a half years ago, or at least adapted it to suit my own needs. It was sweaty, smelly, fairly exhausting and slightly dangerous work, but I was so excited to be doing something new and beautiful that I dragged out the second mould of our friend and worked on that one too. The finishing of the pieces was a real team effort, with André doing an amazing job finishing what I'd started, along with some substantial elbow grease from our new assistant, Luke. When we finished the two pieces, we stood back and admired the work and knew we'd done a grand job. Our friend was absolutely thrilled with her botty and the cast of my own bumptious rump is on our living wall in pride of place, gleaming in full view of the postman each day or anyone who comes calling. I've waited a long time to feel this beautiful, and to be captured in art the way we do for others every day of the week and I jolly well intend to show it off proudly.  Although I do keep turning to André and saying 'Why didn't I know I had such a nice bottom 12 years ago?!!'...and wondering where it went.  

Finally! A decent cast of myself that I can proudly show off to the post man, couriers, people canvassing for the Labour Party, Jehovah's Witnesses and any other passing riff raff I can persuade to admire my glorious metal buttocks. And who would notice my chipped wallpaper when there is such a gleaming butt to behold?!

This new technique is so perfect for women like me, or men, come to think of it, who might be pleased with their overall body shape but more self-conscious or critical of their own skin texture, cellulite, scars etc. Being a textured cast in itself, all the focus is on the shape and the stunning medium of real pewter - making everyone cast this way look like some kind awesome sexy space android. And, let's face it, who wouldn't like to look like an awesome sexy space android? 

Not my butt....the other one. 

Casts in this finish range from £1500-£6000 depending on size and complexity. Which is absolutely worth it for a piece of unique and stunning artwork of your own or a lover's body that you can treasure forever and a very small price to pay for my singed eyebrows. 

A Glass Act - 70 Year Glazing Legacy Remains in Safe Hands

One of the things André and I love most about our job is meeting so many interesting and talented people from all walks of life. When we met Cath and Alan Bell last year, of Bell's Glass & Glazing, Rainham, we were fascinated by their family story and delighted to be asked to collaborate on a piece of work that would help them celebrate a truly special occasion....

A glass slipper changed the life of Cinderella forever, but she’s not the only one for whom glass has been rather lucky. This year heralds the celebration of 70 years in the glass trade for one Kentish business, that has been passed down from father to son for three generations, with help from a fourth! 

HR Bell, as it was then known, was established in 1947 by glazing contractor Harry Bell in the city of Canterbury. Harry was born in 1915 and learnt his trade working for another glass company that went out of business. Like many young men of his generation, he spent some time in the army, but decided after the Second World War to start his own glazing business. After the war, glass was in very short supply, so he had to travel all the way to London to collect each sheet of glass, but business soon flourished thanks to contacts gained during his training and plenty of work due to Luftewaffe bombing damage in Kent. Even Harry’s father-in-law helped out in the business by re-silvering mirrors in his garden shed, due to the expense of buying new mirrors in post-war Britain. 

Harry was a real character, and well known in the local area for transporting the sheets of glass using his motorbike and sidecar, with his brave wife Norah, crouching in the sidecar beside him, clinging onto the glass for dear life as he zoomed along the Kentish roads. As business improved, Harry was able to invest in some small vans to replace the famous motorbike…much to Norah’s relief, no doubt! 

Within a couple of years, the family business had already grown enough to employ 18 members of staff, but his family remembers him as not having been overly keen on having a business at all - wishing to avoid the stress that often comes with it. However, the demand was there and the success of the business snowballed and, much to the appreciation of younger members of the family, he decided to stick with it. 

Sadly, Harry’s life was cut tragically short in a gliding accident at Rochester airport in 1967 aged just 52, and his son Mike Bell, who shared his passion for gliding as a hobby, was left to pick up the pieces of the business after the loss of his father. 

Although Mike initially felt he had no choice in the matter of taking over the family firm, he soon developed a great passion for the business and with a strong worth ethic he pushed the company forward into new directions. By the 1980s, Mike had grown the company to having 95 employees and several branches, but still thought of it as a family business and employed people who he thought would love working with him and whom he saw as extended members of the family. 

Michael retired in 1996 and now the business (these days trading as Bell’s Glass & Glazing in Rainham) is managed with pride and passion by Michael’s son, Alan Bell, who continues it as a largely family-run business; with his own children, Charlotte and Thomas, learning the glass trade with plans to follow in the footsteps of their father, grandfather and great-grandfather before them.  Alan believes the lasting success of the business is down to following in the work ethic of his father and grandfather before him, being the first one in and the last to leave each day; high standards of work with good, consistent customer relationships and a really personal service that you get from dealing with a reliable Kentish family business. 

In honour of this amazing family achievement of 70 years in the glass trade, Alan and his wife, Cath, looked around for a special way to celebrate their business success and mark a very important milestone for the whole family. This is when Cath approached Rockabelly Lifecasts and asked us about creating a bespoke piece of art for Bell’s showroom. We were delighted to help Alan and Cath and set to work creating a unique piece of art formed from casts of Cath and Alan’s entwined hands recreated in…of course…glass! The lead crystal glass sculpture took many weeks to produce and every stage of the process was hand-made to Cath and Alan’s specifications. 

“When Cath and Alan approached me,” CJ said, “I wanted to create something for them that paid homage to the nature of their family business, the beauty of the medium of glass itself, and also reflected the close family ties that have given the business its strength over the years.”

 Now Cath and Alan Bell have been immortalised in glass sculpture in celebration of 70 years and counting with this wonderful Kentish family business, and they look forward to passing on the baton to their own children when they are ready to take the reins.  We hope you will join us in wishing this very special family business a very happy anniversary indeed. 

The finished glass cast by Rockabelly Lifecasts to celebrate a 70 year family glazing legacy!