As the installation work continues everyday at the George Bush Presidential Library, I must also finish some last minute detail work on the weekends at home. Next weekend we will all most certainly be finishing up at the Library so these are my last two days to work at home. One of the items that will be installed on the exhibit entry wall is an antique wine press (about 100 years old) that I found in a barn in Sonoma County, California. This is one of three antique basket presses that I now have for the exhibit. Another even older one that came from Placer County, California will find a temporary home in the libraries rotunda area, and a third will be used to promote the exhibit at various locations. Restoring these old presses has become a true 'labor of love' for me. As I take them apart, pressure wash, strip old paint, varnish and repaint ....or leave with a natural patina, (depending on the look I want) I can only imagine what stories they may tell. Another last minute detail (that I decided at the last minute to make a detail) was the decision to add some authentic 'terra cotta patina' to my replica Houdon bust of Thomas Jefferson. In reading the official Monticello website page discussing the Houdon busts of Jefferson it is mentioned that the artist Houdon always worked in terra cotta clay for the original and even after plaster of Paris casts were made for duplicates they most often were coated with a thin terra cotta layer to give it a distinct patination. Just as I decided to paint the exhibit replica of Jefferson's dining room in 'chrome yellow' paint (not wedgwood blue) because that is the color of Jefferson's dining room when he actually lived in retirement at Monticello from 1809 - 1826.
I decided that the bust must have a terra cotta patination...not the bland white as it came.
The photo at the top of the page shows the replica Jefferson bust just after appling the terra cotta paint layer. The photo below shows a half of the large wooden basket of one of the antique presses after appling spar varnish but before painting the metal pieces.
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