Jeanie Stephenson

Jeanie Stephenson lives in a quiet Tennessee valley just below Sewanee. In her backyard foundry she makes solid bronze sculptures using the centuries-old Lost Wax method. To change solid bronze bars into molten form she melts the metal inside a ground-immersed crucible at 2,100 degrees. The hot liquid bronze is then poured into a ceramic shell, with the bronze taking on the shape of the empty interior. Once the bronze is cooled, the ceramic shell is cracked to reveal a new sculpture.