Real find at garage sale

Barbara Diamond

Garage sale addicts paw through piles of trash each weekend on the

lookout for treasures, perhaps with historical or artistic value.

Laguna Beach heritage committee member Anne Frank, who spends most

Saturday mornings in other people’s garages, hit the jackpot 10 years

ago when she unearthed a sculpture that appeared to be signed by

Julia Bracken Wendt, a noted Laguna Beach sculptor in the 20th

century.

“This was definitely one of my better finds,” said Frank, a

historian with a penchant for collecting local memorabilia and art.

“I recognized the signature.”

Frank -- who is active in the Laguna Beach Historical Society and

the daughter of an artist -- wasn’t sure of the function or the

authenticity of her find.

Frank paid $50 at a Laguna Beach garage sale for her Wendt piece,

which the previous owner had pulled out of a dumpster, and called on

her husband, Dick, to help her lug it home.

The Franks put the piece outside in a semi-secluded place, where

it languished for about a decade. But even with a sealant, water

seeped into the base and the piece deteriorated.

“It was not meant to be outside,” Frank said. “We tried to move it

and it broke into chunks. We either had to put it together or get rid

of it, and I didn’t want to do that.”

Frank took the fragments to master stone carver Marv Johnson, who

teaches sculpture at the Laguna College of Art and Design, and asked

for help in restoring the piece.

Once restoration began, Frank agreed to have the work

authenticated.

DeRus art gallery owner De Witt McCall -- recommended by Laguna

Art Museum curator of collections Janet Blake as an expert on Julia

Wendt -- recently identified the sculpture’s creator and determined

it to be the first step to a bronze casting.

Frank’s find is a circular bas-relief -- a form of sculpture that

is seen against a flat plane rather than in the round. The relief is

carved in hydra stone, about 3 1/2 feet in diameter surmounting a

narrow base. The finely detailed figure is an angel, plucking a harp,

with the wings and the hair conforming to the rounded top.

Incised in the base: “Love is priestess at the altar of truth,”

followed by a comma or a chip that separates it from the next phrase,

“Music is the expression of her praise.” On the far right is a barely

discernible signature and C in a circle, indicating the artist had

copyrighted the piece.

McCall, who buys and sells art and does all the restoration for

the Joan Irvine Museum, had no problem recognizing the sculptor’s

work. After confirming the piece had a copyright symbol, he took

about 15 seconds to identify the sculptor during a visit to the

Johnson home.

“This was done by Julia Wendt,” McCall declared. “It is so well

done and it just has the feel of a woman artist. You can tell just by

looking that it’s by a learned artist.”

Julia Bracken was already a recognized sculptor when she married

German-born artist William Wendt in 1906 and moved with him to Laguna

Beach in 1912. Plein-air painter Wendt was a founding member of the

association that put Laguna Beach on the map as an art colony. The

Laguna Art Museum has works by both Wendts in the permanent

collection.

PICKING UP THE PIECES

“It was like a giant jigsaw puzzle,” Johnson said of the sculpture

when Frank brought it to him.

Johnson couldn’t see any details on the bas-relief because the

pieces were badly eroded by wind and rain and covered in layers and

layers of an unknown finish.

Little did he realize how the project would absorb him.

“I’ve had it about six months, and I figure I have more than six

weeks of work into it,” Johnson said. “I had no clue how much work it

would be. But it’s been worth the trouble.”

At one point, after Johnson had glued all the pieces together, he

turned it over and it fell apart. He started over again.

“I was angry at myself because I had not seen the problem, but I

didn’t consider stopping,” Johnson said. “I thought, ‘By God, I am

going to get it done.’”

The more Johnson worked on the piece the more he admired the skill

of the sculptor and the more he became convinced that it was the

original for a cast piece, using the lost wax method, a multi-step

process.

“First, I played around with the parts, trying to figure out where

they went and what was missing,” Johnson said. “I did a lot of

planning ahead of time and experimented with materials that would

withstand making a mold from this original.”

A cast piece begins with an original, a positive image, to which a

thin layer of two liquid rubbers are applied. After the rubber sets,

a layer of plaster is added. The rubber mold, a negative of the

original, is then removed and molten wax is poured into it, creating

another positive.

The wax mold is compared to the original and refined before it is

sent to a foundry, where another mold is made that encases the wax in

a coating that will withstand high heat in a kiln. When fired, the

wax melts out into the kiln. The hot mold is placed in a sand pit and

molten bronze -- a combination of copper and tin -- is poured in.

“The piece comes out burned looking and must be cleaned up,”

Johnson said.

Chemicals are applied to get the desired patina.

The better the original, the better the finished piece.

“I didn’t know how good this piece was until I cleaned it up and

saw the detail,” Johnson said. “She really knew her anatomy.”

Johnson experimented with lacquer thinner before settling on paint

remover to remove the finish and on Elmer’s Glue to stick it back

together. He used plaster to cover repairs.

“I had to handle it carefully or it would have crumbled,” Johnson

said.

The revealed detail enthralled Johnson -- the hand behind the

strings of the harp, the shapely upper arm, the drapery of the gown,

the curve of the wing, were simply outstanding.

His wife, Planning Commissioner Anne Johnson, said her husband is

obsessed with the piece.

“He hasn’t done any of his own work or anything around the house

for months,” she said.

HISTORIC, ARTISTIC MERIT VERIFIED

McCall estimated Wendt sculpted the piece in the early 1920s. A

badly eroded date on the base could be 1924 Johnson said.

“There is probably a bronze somewhere of this,” McCall said. “The

artist would not copyright it, if it were not going to be cast.”

Sculptors copyright their originals because it is easy to make

more copies from the mold, unlike paintings, McCall said.

Sculptors kept the copyrighted originals because another mold

could be made, as is the case with the bas-relief now owned by Frank.

McCall and Johnson have discussed the most suitable protective

finishes for the piece and how much more restoration should be done.

McCall advised keeping the signature and copyright as legible as

possible if the piece will be recast.

Planning Commissioner Linda Dietrich wants to see that happen and

the finished piece installed in Laguna as public art.

She anticipates that the Laguna Beach Arts Commission, on which

she formerly served, would be interested the project.

“I was told when the pieces were brought to me that it was a

sculpture by Wendt,” Johnson said. “Now, I know it is a piece of

Laguna history.”