Metal Sculptors’ Image-Blasting Called Art Form of the Future

The small mesa on the back side of Socorro Peak is littered with broken plaster and the remains of old jet fighters now used for target practice. A military tank rolls around in leisurely circles.

In the distance, workmen are building exotic structures to be used in testing explosives. Signs warn people to stay away.

It is an odd place for an artists’ studio.

This, however, is where Evelyn Rosenberg and Alice Warder Seely produce their unusual art. They use explosives to create high-relief murals and sculptures.

The canyons southwest of the mountain are the field laboratory for two of the nation’s leading explosives-research facilities--the U.S. Navy’s Terminal Effects Research Analysis program and the fledgling Center for Explosives Technology Research at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

Under the auspices of the center, and with the backing of New Mexico Tech’s president, Laurence Lattman, Tech has become home to an experimental art form that began with a well-known principle.

“Everyone who had done explosives noticed that when you put something on the surface (under the explosives), it makes the image,” said Rosenberg, who is carrying on her work through an adjunct professorship at New Mexico Tech.

First Work Hung at School

Officials at Tech recently dedicated the artists’ first completed work, a seven-panel mural designed by Rosenberg and hung at the entrance of the school’s Macey Center.

The panels, formed of 24-gauge steel, depict the evolution of animal life in the middle Rio Grande Valley, from trilobites to primitive birds, small mammals and humans.

The seven panels, each 4 feet by 3 1/2 feet, are the result of several months of experiments involving about 80 blasts at the TERA site, where remnants of their plaster molds still lie scattered about.

Typically, metal-relief art pieces require an expensive bronze-casting method or time-consuming hammering known as repousse. With explosives, however, the blast forces the metal into the plaster mold and produces a high degree of detail.

It cost about $12,000 to produce the mural, compared to an estimated $100,000 cost if the pieces had been cast in bronze, Rosenberg said.

The mural project gave both the artists and technical experts valuable information about molding metals in art. It also triggered a new round of experiments using different types of metals and molds.

Expert Developing Technique

The artists’ technical adviser, Alexander Szecket, an expert in explosives bonding, welding and forming, said that explosives can be used to etch, emboss or form any design in metal.

“The technique works, but of course it is necessary to develop it further,” he said. He added that the research center’s primary concern is development of explosives-bonding methods for industry.

“The center is capable and has the know-how to achieve any type of shape, any type of form--in this case, to form it into a shape provided by the artist.”

Explosives have a very big future in art, Szecket said. A number of companies have expressed interest in using the talents of New Mexico’s numerous artists to develop different types of explosives art.

Szecket said that future efforts will include three-dimensional sculpture and attempts to bond two types of materials with cutouts, so that bronze or copper details shine through on steel panels.

On a recent windy afternoon, the artists traveled to the TERA site to blast four panels in bronze, copper and aluminum. They hoped to be able to fuse the panels with various types of metal foil, enamel, sand, metal shavings and other materials.

Thick plaster molds depicting leaves, prehistoric animals and other designs were laid on the rocky ground, then covered with the metal sheets, miscellaneous other materials and a thin layer of rubber to cushion the blast.

Technician Sets Blast

Rich Boots, the TERA ordnance technician most often assigned to work with Rosenberg and Seely, then covered the metal with a layer of Detasheet, the trade name of the C-1 plastic explosive used to form the mural.

The explosives then were tied to a long, hollow cord coated inside with more sensitive explosives. The cord was strung to a concrete bunker overlooking the blast site about 60 yards away.

The fuse was lit and a minute later, a loud KA-BOOM! shattered the air and lifted a cloud of dust as all four panels were “blown” in unison.

The experiment was a partial success. Blackened impressions were formed in the bronze and copper pieces, but the aluminum was reduced to shrapnel.

“It’s really hard to see what you’ve got until it’s cleaned,” said Rosenberg, who does the touching up at her home in Albuquerque.

Rosenberg said that she hopes that companies involved in explosives and research eventually will commission artistic works, and thus help to establish the medium as a legitimate art form, “not just a kooky thing.”