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. 

Inspiring new book features the work of André and CJ from Rockabelly Lifecasts

Image courtesy of Jen Townsend and Renée Zettle-Sterling

A brand new book, 'Cast' by Jen Townsend and Renée Zettle-Sterling, explores the exciting medium of casting - of which lifecasting is just one small part. The book covers art and objects cast in a vast array of materials and techniques, demonstrating the depth and breadth of casting as an artform in its own right, as well as an essential process in creating many other types of art.   André Masters & CJ Munn from Rockabelly Lifecasts/Masters & Munn are just two of many artist contributors from around the world whose beautiful work fills the pages of this inspiring and fascinating new publication. 

The book is published by Schiffer Publishing, and is available for pre-order from Amazon. Or for a limited time you could win your own copy by entering this competition. 

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! 

A word on hand or foot casting kits and why we don't rate them.

Rockabelly Lifecasts has been designing and selling DIY casting kits for our mail order clients for many years now. We have fairly strong opinions on which types of casting are really suitable for beginners and which ones are not. Sometimes those types of body casting that in, our professional opinion, are better left to professionals and can even be potentially dangerous to do without the right kind of knowledge and experience. Other types, such as hand or foot casting kits can have a very high 'disappointment rate' for beginners attempting it at home due to simple things like air bubbles getting into the mould as you pour your plaster or not being able to control the pose of the baby. The quality of instructions that come with kits available on the market varies hugely, as do the quality of materials included in such kits, with no central governing body keeping an eye on standards.

A very many of our clients have come to us for baby hand or feet casts or family group casts just desperate to get it done properly after having previously tried and failed (often multiple times) with cheap kits they bought on the internet or in stores or were given as well-meaning gifts.  The true art of casting is not simply in being able to take a good mould from the subject/model but also in setting up the pose well, knowing the art of pouring the casting material correctly, and how to deal with any problems that occur ('perfect' casts straight out of the mould are incredibly rare and most will need varying degrees of hand-sculpting to finish them to a professional standard. You cannot easily teach these re-sculpting techniques in a kit form).

Many kit instructions do not state accurate drying times for long-lasting casts or provide the best advice in terms of decoration or display which can lead to the cast moulding and rotting away after as little time as 18 months. Some of these, where moisture has been trapped inside the cast and gradually rises to the surface may develop 'Black Mould', a known carcinogen. For the relatively small difference in price between even an up-market DIY kit and a professional baby casting session which will guarantee you excellent results, it really is an easy choice for a personal piece of sculpture that is so unique and precious and going to be cherished for a lifetime, possibly generations to come. We believe the same is true even when working with adult hand casting kits due to similar problems with air bubbles/missing fingertips.

We do encourage experimentation and fun with our own kits for other body parts or other good quality kits from some reputable lifecasting companies who specialise in this area with many years of experience and really understand the health and safety precautions as well as the finer nuances of the craft itself. But for some body parts we truly believe it is worth splashing out that extra little bit on a professional rather than risking disappointment and wasted time and money. We know that not everyone agrees with us, but having been selling our kits since 2001 we have had only three kits returned to date in all those years, and not one of those for reasons of cast 'failure' or because of anything negative about the kit itself. Very few other companies can make the same claim. We do not sell 'kit refills', because our kits are designed to work first time to our customer's satisfaction, and not require you to spend out yet more money 'to get it right', thinking that any problems were your fault rather than with the design of a kit. Put simply, owning a pair of scissors would not make you a hairdresser - and similarly, buying casting materials will not instantly make you a lifecaster. However, that doesn't mean you can't have a go at this wonderful art form, or learn new skills with practise, of course. But it definitely is worth looking into your options before you part with your money to make sure you have a great chance of success or if you'd be better off/safer hiring a professional or even investing in a couple of days of training so you can really accelerate your learning and cast safely with confidence. 

We only sell kits that we believe our customers have every chance of success with, and we offer personal advice by phone and email to any kit customer who is unsure or has issues or questions. However this offer of one-to-one extra help is very rarely taken up by our clients because our instructions are so thorough and detailed. We are not interested in peddling the kind of kits that have a high failure rate by nature of the complexity involved because at Rockabelly Lifecasts we only want happy, satisfied customers who enjoy and get success from the casting process either via a private appointment or via our kits. For this reason you will not see any baby hand or foot casting kits, or indeed adult hand casting or family group casting kits in our web shop, nor will we personally recommend any on the market. We are happy, however, to advise you on our other kinds of kits you can have great fun with regardless of your level of artistic experience and get great results from with no risk of wasting your hard-earned money. If we think one of our kits will be unsuitable for your required task we will always be completely honest. In terms of baby casting, for example, for just the cost of a family meal out or a modest pair of shoes (often soon forgotten) you can have something truly lasting, memorable and beautifully hand-made especially for your family that grows in emotional value year upon year. We think that's worth every penny. And our customers do too. 

If you've had mixed results with a kit you've bought elsewhere and don't know how to salvage things, do feel free to get in touch, perhaps including a photo or two of your home made casts and we will advise you in the best way to fix any damage and be happy to quote for carrying out repairs, replacements or material upgrades. We all love a bargain, but don't compromise on the quality of purchases that could become your most precious, prized and priceless possessions.