Thank you for coming and welcome to stone masonry for Masons before we get started I want to introduce myself my name is Morgan dummit I’m a sculptor living and working here in Philadelphia I work tradition in traditional materials primarily clay stone and bronze I’m a figurative sculptor meaning that I sculpt primarily
People either in the full figure or portrait busts I started my training across the street at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and have also apprenticed with a variety of stone Carvers and other artists I’m not a Freemason but as we will discuss I am a Mason of
Sorts the purpose of our talk today will be to look at the technical side of the many wonderful sculptural and decorative crafts on display here at the Masonic Lodge I’ll talk for about 30 minutes and then open up for any questions but let’s start with a little
Bit of context why we might ask is this building called the Masonic Library if none of its adher are masons although the word masonry refers to the practice of shaping Stone few of any members of modern Masonic lodges are masons in the literal sense of the word so as to avoid
Confusion from here on out when I refer to masonry I mean the traditional craft of stone carving and when I say Freemasonry I mean the modern society of free and accepted masons for the latter free and accepted masons the dividers square triangle and Plum line are invoked according to their symbolic
Rather than practical meanings the compass might represent the relationship of the individual to the society rather than a simple drafting tool how did modern Freemasonry develop from a guild of crafts people working Stone hundreds of years ago to the philosophically minded Brotherhood of today in tracing this Evolution we might easily conclude
That the original definition of masonry has been entirely lost to contemporary Freemasonry in anything but a symbolic sense yet I propose that this is a misleading conclusion much of this talk will be devoted to explaining the various architectural and sculptural crafts on display in Philadelphia’s Masonic Library the more we understand
The technical difficulties of these trades the more we will understand that we are standing amidst a managerie of traditional crafts practiced at their absolute Pinnacle this building incorporates the diverse Arts of stone masonry stone carving wood carving carpentry plaster and bronze casting faux finishing gilding figurative sculpture abstract
Design as well as oil painting Mosaic and many more we will see that this Lodge is as much a library of sculptural and decorative techniques as it is a library of texts and ideas while the simple stonemasons of the 14th century appear to have given way to the speculative or accepted
Masons of the modern era the very stones of this building stand as a Living testament to their legacy and continuing role in defining Freemasonry craft and creative Ingenuity in the 21st century let’s begin by following these medieval stonemasons who gave rise over the centuries to the institution we call Modern
Freemasonry while I may be an expert in sculpture I am certainly not an expert in freemasonic history and much of this information is still being debated by historians far more aidite than I am as of the 15th century we have the earliest written distinction between Masons and Freemasons while a Mason is undisputedly
A word describing a worker in stone the atmology of Freemason is far less straightforward Freemasons may have been literally Freemasons that is stonemasons not in ured and free to travel and practice their craft it may be that Masons who worked on ecclesiastical properties were free from Taxation and other local
Government regulations and were in this sense free Freemasons may also have been workers of free Stone meaning stone with a tight enough grain to be worked in any direction and therefore suitable for more elaborate ornamental or sculptural applications Freemasons would in this case have been finer crafts people than
Than ordinary Masons who worked primarily on the quarrying and crude shaping of building stones at any rate by the early 17th century the latter definition had come into accepted use the term Mason referred to minimally educated huers of stone while a similar Port while a smaller portion of Craftsmen were called
Freemasons educated in Geometry design and the more precise and artistic applications of the stone Carver art Masons of any description were parts of the guild system which governed trade workers between the 11th and 16th centuries workers were ranked according to experience from apprentices to journeyman and and the highest title
Master Mason at this point the Masons were a little more less than a highly organized and regulated group of Crafts People encompassing quaran as well as the sculptors of the early Renaissance while their tools dividers triangles and so on may appear esoteric to the I they were nothing more Arcane
Than the tools of their trade the sea change the shift away from practical Craftsmen little educated beyond the demands of their careers comes in the 18th century the early 18th century sees the creation of the first Masonic lodges research remains divided on the impetus for their for their transformation from
Simple tool sheds to larger more elaborate centers of community during this time period General membership in Masonic guilds seems to have increased and it is possible that lodges simply increased in in scale accordingly owing to the dangerous nature of the work lodges may have grown out of necessity into places for the
Care of injured Craftsmen and eventually provided for the widows and children of those killed on the job it may also be that the preponderance of religious wars in the 17th century left many Masons without Guild halls or codified building permissions and that these Crafts People reorganized their communities around
Masonic lodges here in the slide we see the first Masonic Lodge built in America St John’s in Boston at any rate these lodges soon attracted men who were not stonemasons for the community they provided and I say men intentional with very few exceptions all masons in the premodern
And modern era are male these men were considered accepted or speculative Masons whereas the practicing stone cutters were practical or operative Masons accepted masons could be from any class disregarding the strict social hierarchy that was normative at this time it is speculated that the modern freemasonic value of taking good men and
Making them better originates with the presence of upper class men rubbing shoulders with lower class masons in the same Lodge accepted masons began borrowing the tools of practical masonry and imbu them with symbolic meanings and moral lessons with which Modern Masons are familiar aprons Guild handshakes and other practical elements of the stoneworking
Guilds were reframed as emblems of frat of a fraternity of ideas rather than literal crafty while the free in free and accepted masons still refers to the freemasonic Craftsman from the beginning of our discussion by the 20th century the overwhelming majority of Masons were of the speculative
Branch in the slide we see the stained glass portraits of FDR and Truman in Philadelphia’s Library dressed in aprons and holding tools though of course we are not meant to understand that they actually used them to carve Stone the craft of stone carving has become the vigial tale of Freemasonry still visible
In the body of the organization but functioning only as a signifer of a bygone and outmoded Masonic Community bringing things back to the present as we all know symbols and signs tend to become invisible if you write do not eat on your leftovers in the fridge it practically guarantees that your
Roommate spouse or child will do so while the Masonic Lodge here in Philadelphia is replete with the signatures of countless master craft in its stonework painted and guilt interiors and sculptural decoration it is easy enough to stop really seeing them for what they are I will now turn
To an overview of these traditional crafts in understanding their complexities and the skill involved in creating every every inch of this building I hope that we will see the Masonic Library a new each time we re-engage with a piece of art in the library we are honoring the master
Craftsman who created it and renewing its relevance in our experience of Freemason we are bringing the hammer and chisel or the compass and Plum line out of esoterica and into our daily lives I’ll begin by talking about the most obvious craft at least eological masonry the line between stone masonry
And stone carving for sculpture is blurry but for our purposes stone masonry involves the shaping of stone for construction and decorative purposes this might be anything from squaring a block for building a wall to carving the decorative top of a capital as can be seen in wonderful profusion in the
Entrance to the library whatever the shape is stone masonry involves taking a rough block of stone be it Limestone granite marble or otherwise and reducing it from a crude Mass into more refined geometric shapes like most Fine Arts masonry involves moving from the broad to the specific saving fine details
Until after the overall shape has been achieved in order to understand how Masons progress from this broad shaping to fine details I’d like to introduce the various tools that the Mason uses to shape Stone carving starts not with hammers and chisels but with a set of tools that have changed very little
Since ancient Egypt the feathers and wedges these devices are used to split large stones into manageable blocks of the approximate Dimensions required for a project first a series of holes are drilled into the stone mass in a straight line then the feathers and wedges are inserted into the hole in a
Precise manner as shown the feathers sit alongside the wedges such that when the top of the wedge is tapped with a hammer the feathers are driven into the stone applying considerable pressure after a series of gentle Taps that drive the wedges slowly into the holes the stone reliable reliably Cleaves along the intended
Line the next tool that the Mason uses is the pitch this is a broad-headed chisel with a thick wide cutting head far more coarsely shaped than any other chisel the pitch is used to further reduce the block to its desired shape by rapidly removing large amounts of
Material the Mason draws a straight line on the Block and delivers a series of sharp blows with the pitch a fault line is created and large amounts Stone are easily removed once the pitch has been used the block may be nearly finished All That Remains is cleaning up the inch
Or so of irregular surface that it leaves behind depending on the job no further finishing may be required for example Mason’s building mortarless stone walls deploy the pitch alone with great skill to cut each Stone Stone precisely into shape if a smoother or more regular surface is required the Mason moves on
To a variety of chisels working from course to fine here a brief look at the simple physics of a hammer and chisel is instructive as they dictate the shape of the various chisels a hammer hits the Striking head of a chisel and the force travels down the Chisel to The Cutting
Head and into the stone the shape of the chisel’s cutting head determines its effect on the stone if the entire chisel comes to a single point all of the force of the hammer is forced into one minute spot for a maximum of stone removal we
Can see a point chisel in the center of this slot here we can see a portrait bust roughed out with only the point chisel unless otherwise noted all work illustrating artistic processes is my own if the cutting head is divided into more than one point the force of the
Same Hammer blow will remove less Stone but the removal is more easily controlled and articulated in the next chisel shown the claw chisel The Cutting Edge is divided into a series of points or teeth the more teeth the less stone is removed while the two toothed dogs tooth will
Remove a great deal of material smaller tooth chisels with blunted teeth may be used for careful modeling of small forms by following the point chisel with a series of claw chisels the Mason generally finish is shaping the stone the only thing left to do is to remove the grooves left behind by the
Claw this is achieved with a flat chisel shown on the left which removes very little material but leaves behind a relatively clean unified surface on a soft Stone like Limestone this is usually the last step in harder Stone like marble or Granite files and rasps may be used to further refine the
Surface abrasives like Sandstone Emirate and pmus may be used to impart a shiny polish this series of tools from the pitch to final finishing with abrasiv is used whether the Mason is making a simple Square block or a finely carved statue even if a sculptor is carving a
Highly detailed figure or design the tools are more or less the same here we come to the second art form I’d like to discuss today the creation of sculpture and stone like I said the line between sculp and masonry is so blurry as to be practically meaningless for example take
The heads of these columns from the front of the Masonic Library the design is regular and geometric though finished with a high degree of decoration it requires both the mathematical Precision of the stone Mason and the Freer more organic carving skills of the sculptor a project like this might traditionally be
Roughly shaped by Masons before being finished off by a sculptor but in reality either craft person would be qualified to complete compl this sort of project in most cases however stonemasons are not responsible for creating statuary certainly not forly sophisticated statues of people like this marble figure in the museum or the
Highly articulated lion’s head on the second floor Stone sculptors arrive at their forms in one of two ways directly or indirectly the direct Carver is more akin to a mason in that his only tools are those which we have just discussed the direct Carver draws the outline of
The sculpture on the stone and then proceeds to carve largely according to drawings plans or the imagination The Columns pictured in the previous slide were very likely carved directly while highly precise results can be achieved by direct carving direct carvings often have a certain Whimsy and flexibility as the direct Carver often
Changes his design as it is revealed to him through the action of carving virtually all carving between the fall of Rome and the late Gothic was direct and stunning examples can be seen in the Masonic Museum and around the world the other mode of carving is indirect carbing the indirect Carver
First models his forms in clay and then transfers them precisely into stone the obvious Advantage is that Clay is a far more forgiving material than Stone a very sensitive shape like a portrait of a particular person or a delicately modeled figure can be arrived at after endlessly pushing the clay using wooden
And metal tools the sculptor can change their mind add on and remove without the stonem Mason’s fear of cutting off too much once the delicately modeled bust is completed the sculpter knows exactly what forms he is to carve as the clay model serves as an extremely precise
Guide the clay is preserved in plaster and then a tool called a pointing machine is used to transfer hundreds of precise measurements from the plaster to the stone while it is called a machine the pointing machine is nothing more mechanical than a precisely articulated brass measuring apparatus let’s quickly look through the
Various stages of using the pointing machine first we have the creation of a finished clay model on the left next the pointing machine is set up on an appropriately sized block next the piece is roughed out with the point chisel eventually we start taking points on the surface revealing the majority of the
Sculpture the surface is then uh finished with flat chisels and rasps and the sculpture is completed as we can see the final sculpture is extremely close to the original plaster to a degree that would not be possible if directly carving from a drawing moving on from Stone carving
Let’s look at a craft that is in many ways similar wood carving the Masonic library has several stunning life-sized wood carvings although most are painted white to resemble marble a practice common in the 19th century conceptually wood carving is similar to Stone carving in that either one directly carves from a drawing or
Indirectly from a carefully prepared plaster model interestingly because wood was historically a less valuable and less durable medium wood carving has traditionally been practiced directly which is faster and less costly as it does not require the creation of a preparatory plaster model here we see several highly accomplished wood
Carvings on the second floor several by William Rush a co-founder of the nearby Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from a practical point of view wood carving varies greatly from Stone carving the primary difference is that wood is composed of rows of organic fibers while stone is composed of countless tiny mineral
Crystals Stone carving chisels Mash these C crystals to remove them while wood carving chisels actually slice or cut through the comparatively soft wood fibers as we can see here Stone carving chisels are far blunter than wood carving chisels which must be kept literally razor sharp while the action of a stone
Carving chisel is dependent almost entirely upon the division of points Along The Cutting Edge as previously described wood carving chisels are all flat ended in that they have a flat Edge which is constantly in contact with the wood what varies is the size and profile of the tulle end which may be anywhere
From a broad Crescent to a tight U or vshape chisels are driven by a heavy wooden Mallet for rough carvet but because wood is so much softer than Stone they may D they may be driven by hand for smaller details as in stone carving wood carvings may be finished
With rasps and abrasives like sandpaper but are often left with a tooled finish in summary wood carving is quite similar to Stone carving in principle but the material Demands a very different execution sculpture production can be roughly divided into two approaches casting and carving in carving the final sculptural material is present
Throughout the process the Mason starts with a stone block and ends up with a stone carving in cast sculpture appliable material like clay or wax is carefully mod into the desired shape plaster molds are then made on these impermanent materials and filled with other more durable substances such as plaster or
Bronze let’s next look at the mold making process to see how a sculpture in clay winds up as a finished bronze sculpture or the humbler class plasters we see in this slide from the Masonic Library all by the great French sculptor UD the art of clay modeling is extremely
Rich and deep and incorporates the skills of drawing observation Anatomy gesture Rhythm and other skills common to a variety of artistic Pursuits the sculptor models the clay or wax with a variety of wooden tools and rakes when the modeling is completed a plaster mold must be made to facilitate
Casting in a permanent Medium as anyone who has made a clay pot in school will know Clay dries out and becomes brittle if not kept damp and as such is not a permanent or durable material while not nearly as hard as stone or bronze plaster is at least stable and if
Undisturbed will last indefinitely before discussing mold making let’s differentiate between the mold and the casting they are easily confused especially when we are talking about a plaster mold used to create a plaster casting the mold is a negative impression of the sculpture traditionally made of plaster while we
Use flexible rubber molds today all of the castings in the Masonic Library are made from plaster molds so this is what I will focus on the casting or positive is the sculpture itself made by pouring liquid plaster wax or other materials into the negative mold the mold is removed leaving behind a positive
Casting traditionally plaster casting requires two phases of mold making the waist mold and the piece mold the waste mold is a one-time use mold while the pieace mold can be used manytimes times the waste mold is made by painting plaster directly onto a finished clay surface the freshly mixed plaster is as
Thin as milk and captures every detail of the sculpture when it has hardened the negative mold is removed from the clay model which is discarded the mold is reassembled and filled with fresh plaster to produce our plaster casting as we can see in the middle of the slide
The mold is chipped off leaving behind a perfect positive casting of the clay original because the mold is chipped off of the plaster casting and discarded it is called a waste mold the plaster casting is now refined and finished using steel tools on the right we see the finished plaster
Casting plaster is far softer than wood or stone and is shaped with more with fine rasps than with hammers and chisels any seam lines from the mold the waste mold must be cleaned off air bubbles filled and then the sculpture may be sanded filed or otherwise perfected now
We have a single plaster casting this can be where the process stops but if one wants to make multiple plaster castings or bronze castings a second more complex piece mold must be made on the plaster casting created via the waste molding process a plaster piece mold is essential is essentially a jigsaw of
Plaster pieces that are formed around the sculpture they can be removed from a rigid plaster casting without damaging so any place where a piece would snag on the sculpture a second piece must be made to facilitate removal as you can see in the picture anywhere that the
Waste mold would snag on a castic another piece is created a piece mold of a portrait bust might easily have 20 pieces depending on the sculpture’s complexity the plaster is divided up via the creation of clay walls and each piece of the mold is cre created individually when all the pieces have
Been created they are housed in a larger plaster shell or mother mold which holds them in place during the casting process this piece mold can now be filled with plaster and instead of being destroyed like the waste mold it is simply removed piece by piece and reassembled ready to
Be filled for the next cast this is how all of the plaster busts on display in the museum were made if this sounds complicated it is nothing compared with the creation of a bronze sculpture the Masonic library is full of beautiful bronze objects from functional objects like this lamp to a
Variety of sculptures in relief and the round a bronze casting starts with the aformentioned sequence of clay model waste mold and then peace mold this is because the first step in bronze casting is to pour hot wax into a piece mold to create a wax casting of the intended
Sculpture because the wax is delicate a piece mold is required to safely remove the casting what’s more the wax casting for bronze is always Hollow unless the piece is very small which makes it even more delicate if we tried to remove a wax casting from a waste mold it would
Shatter why do we want a wax casting if the final material is to be bronze why don’t we just pour bronze right into the plaster mold while bronze casting sounds wildly iterative it’s actually the fastest means of of meeting the specific needs of metal casting first we need a mold which can
Withstand the 2100 degrees required for bronze to pour properly if we poured bronze into a plaster mold the mold would be destroyed so we need to make a mold out of a material which can withstand the considerable heat of bronze casting for this we use Liquid
Ceramic which can be fired and made to withstand the bronze core the second demand of bronze casting follows the first the ceramic mold must be made over a material which can be easily melted out leaving a cavity for the bronze to fill wax is perfect for this as it is easily cast and
Manipulated but can be completely liquefied and drained while the ceramic is fired while we could make a ceramic mold over the original plaster casting there would be no way to remove it without breaking the ceramic Shell built over a thin wax cast the ceramic mold is fired and the wax evacuates through
Small holes or Vents and bronze can be safely poured into the cavity left behind here we see a sculpture cast in red wax it is cut into several sections and a system of wax bars is created to deliver bronze to all parts of the sculpture as well as facilitate the
Draining of wax from the ceramic mold on the left we see a variety of those wax channels on the right we see the production of camic molds over the wax casting when the wax is melted out we are ready to pour bronze when the metal has cooled
Castings must be clean ground and filed to Perfection and in larger sculptures various sections needed to be need to be welded together here we see some of that progress some of that work in progress finally a chemical P patina is applied at high heat to create the brown
Green or black coloration that we usually see on finished bronze sculptures it would be difficult to discuss traditional craft in the Masonic Library without touching upon faux or false finishing and gilding famously many of the rooms in the library are elaborately painted to resemble other materials from Stone to Wood to Gold the
Level of skill and attention to detail is nothing short of astounding while I don’t have time here to go into how each of these painted surfaces is achieved we can in general discuss what is involved in treating plaster to look like something else the first problem the faux finisher faces is that the
Plaster is extremely porous if one is to paint over it especially in oil it must be first sealed to prevent the paint from being absorbed unevenly this is traditionally achieved by applying paint by painting the wall with size glue or shellac these substances fill the pores in the plaster and allow smooth
Application of color here are just a few more painted walls in the Masonic Library the quality and variety of which are really unlike anything I’ve seen elsewhere many surfaces in the library are not only painted but guilt that is covered in an an extremely thin layer of
Gold leaf Gold Leaf is real gold that has been beaten so that it is thinner than tissue paper gilding leaves the impression that the object whether a sculpture or piece of architectural decoration is partially or entirely composed of gold in reality it is usually made of a far cheaper material
Like plaster wood or even bronze again the substrate must be sealed in this case with a gilder’s primer which both seals the plaster and provides a war a warm undertone traditionally gilding primer is either red r or yellow the gold is so thin that the undertone
Shines through and in the event that the gold is ever scratched or damaged a pleasing warm under layer is revealed rather than a harsh of of bright white a harsh spot of bright white Plaster when the primer is dry the gold leaves are attached using an oilbased adhesive
Called gilding size gold leaves are only a few inches wide and extremely fragile any larger and they would tear under their own weight a broad squirrel hair brush called a gilder’s tip is used to pick up the leaves and transfer them to the primed surface the leaves are so light that the
Static charge between the brush and the leaf is enough to hold them to the gilder’s tip if the brush runs out of static electricity the Gilder simply rubs rubs it vigorously in their hair and static charge is created after the surface is entirely covered in Gold Leaf
Any overlapping or extra Leaf is brushed away and the surface can be burnished to bring out the luster of the gold here we can see someone not me applying gold leaf with a gilder’s tip you can see how thin the leaves are and the red primer where the leaf has not yet been
Added we have now covered Stone and wood carving plaster and bronze casting and touched on faux finishing yet we have barely scratched the surface of the vast array of crafts practiced in the creation of the Masonic Lodge we have said nothing of the world class oil paintings or the incredible mosaics and
Stained glass but we running out of time it would take days to account for every inch of human Ingenuity which came together to build this incredible space I’d like to wind down our talk by taking a new look at the front hall of the lodge with an eye for appreciating the astonishing array
Of craft excellent on Excellence on display everyone walking into the lodge sees this partition you pass it on your way to the central staircase the ballroom or the library you might walk past it without realizing the Symphony of Arts un display and this is surely not the most inherently striking area of
The museum let’s start with the bottom and work our way up this richly carved marble Bas started Life as a rough block and was carefully carved probably directly from a coar pitch to fine abrasive polishing above that we have this elaborately carved and guilt wood cherub again the Cherub started out as a
Laog and was carefully carved before being finished with gold leaf passing by the beautifully designed tile work we come to a wooden arch intricately carved with foliage patterns on the mezzanine level are three stunning guilt bronze ball relief sculptures these began as masterfully modeled clay sculptures they
Were cast in plaster first via the waist mold and then the pce mold waxes were cast ceramic molds built and the wax burned out bronze was heated in a furnace to over 2,000 and poured the metal was meticulously finished and then and again a thin layer of gold was
Applied the reliefs are flanked by complex wooden carvings of the human figure in this one spot we see all of the Arts I have discussed and many more besides if so much can be said of this particular panel let alone the entire Museum how can we think that modern
Masonry is divorced from the master Craftsman who founded while I have expanded my consideration of craft Beyond Stone Mas Artisans working in in various trades discussed would have been fellow craft people working towards the construction of beautiful buildings and objects while we may think of their tools and aprons as largely vestigial
They are with us every time we stroll through the Masonic Library a sense of solemn nearly sacred profundity pervades the halls of such a beautiful building and whatever one’s spiritual lean I believe that it is in large part created by the Halls themselves by the Fingerprints of the crafts people who
Labored over every inch of as we walk these Halls we are interacting with their legacy and in a sense keeping it alive through our engagement we are paying homage to the Master Masons of the past and in doing so enshrining and renewing their role in modern Freemason thank
You that’s the end of the talk and if there are any questions I will invite you to ask them don’t all Rush up at once um I actually have a question um can you talk a little bit more it seems like and I know you touched on this but it seems like you
Can tell when a sculpture has been done via direct versus indirect carving can you talk a little more about how you can tell that just by looking yeah you can’t you can never tell for certain uh in general the more regular the more easily made as a two-dimensional template a
Sculpture would be the more likely it is to have been directly carved and the more sophisticated the forms are the more likely it is to have been based on a clay model and then carved indirectly but you would have to have a lot of experience with carving to be able to
Tell with any degree of accuracy which one it was thank you uh I had a question uh you mentioned earlier those Buss by hll that we have copies of upstairs uh we were told that the original Franklin bust uh was done in red terracotta is that like a decent
Medium yeah that’s terracotta is just terracotta means uh cooked Earth and it’s just fired clay so it started out as clay which would be modeled uh as though you were going to proceed in any way and then it was fired in a kill and then after that they had they made a
Piece mold of many pieces on top of that so it’s just clay thank you okay well uh it seems as though there are no further questions so thank you everyone for coming
source
