The bronze door of Liviu
A fortuitous meeting
In 2013 the Artistic Foundry Ferdinando Marinelli, together with the Bazzanti Art Gallery and the friend Federico Frediani, organized e a bronze sculpture exhibition at the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles together.
On that occasion he was invited to spend two days in the villa of friends of Federico in Malibu. And there, at lunch, after Ferdinando had cooked a “risotto”, he met Dr. Liviu Eftime and his wife Adina. Two art lovers, like all the friends in the company. Dr. Liviu is also an exceptional painter, his wife is a writer. A pleasant friendship is born. Liviu mentions a new villa for which he would like to sculpt and cast bronze doors.
The beginning of the collaboration
At the end of 2017 a series of phone calls between Los Angeles and Florence: Liviu has been creating the models of his door in clay, asking us how to execute the negative molds and how to send them to the Foundry in Barberino val d’Elsa (Florence). In March 2018 he sent photos of his work
In April 2018 the negative molds arrive in the Foundry. A few days later Liviu arrives in the Foundry too and our friend Federico Frediani comes to visit us. We go immediately to have lunch together in the country.
The Work
During his visits in Tuscany Liviu closely follows the work of the Foundry, retouching the waxes; he argues that the work of art is never finished, and in every processing phase he wants to make changes and modifications, just as Leonardo da Vinci did on the Gioconda painting, which he always carried with him in his travels and which he constantly retouched.
The waxes are covered with refractory material (“loto”) and the “loto” molds are fired in the furnaces.
The processing of the newly cast bas-reliefs is performed by the Marinelli’s Foundry together with Liviu.
The bas-reliefs are welded and assembled to form the two parts of the door followed by a well-deserved lunch.
In January 2019 Liviu returns to Italy in the Foundry for final testing, and then we celebrated with another lunch.
The doors, patinated, waiting for the packaging and shipping to Laguna Beach.
