Art Chowder January | February, Issue 19 | Page 15

S omething new showing up more and more in Sonja’s work is her use of color in the final patina. Her recent ocean-themed pieces are great examples. After a bronze is poured, it’s a light golden color. Sulphurated potash or liver of potash is the chemical that produces the basic bronze color we’re familiar with. To add coloring, the foundry’s patina artist heats the metal to a specific temperature and then, working closely with the sculptor, will apply additional chemicals, such as ammonium chloride or ferric nitrate to produce golds and reds. The white spots on Sonja’s whale sculpture are made using bismuth nitrate, which, when just touched to the warm metal with a paint brush produces a milky white cloud that spreads until it creates the circle. The patina process can take anywhere from a half-hour to days, depending on the size of the piece and the amount of color being applied. Sonja wasn’t always a sculptor. Her path, like so many of ours, took its twists and turns — beginning with art school in Johannesburg while still a teenager, then an opportunity in the nine-to-five world of commercial art on the East Coast of South Africa, to a lengthy stint in engineering drafting. The drafting brought her to the United States — Anchorage, Bellingham, and finally, Colville — with her engineer/artisan husband, Blair. It was here, in this settled, rural environment that Sonja reconnected with her original love of fashioning beautiful objects from clay. January | February 2019 15