Jessi I - Number 1 of Limited Edition of 10 Sculpture

My bio follows after this paragraph, but it's important to share this information, and I don't see another prominent place to post it on my page. I sculpt in wax, then my foundry makes molds of my work, shoots wax copies from the molds, I work on the wax parts, then the foundry casts them in bronze. So, in addition to sculpting the original piece, I spend hours working on the wax copies before they are cast in bronze. Although I resumed sculpting in 2007, I am only now (2019) listing them with a gallery (Saatchi). When I take a sculpture to the foundry, I have one piece cast of a sculpture, and I mark it number one. If I sell that sculpture, I have the foundry cast another copy and it is number two. I keep a record the person who bought a sculpture. When I cast the 10th copy of a sculpture, I will destroy the mold and make no more copies of that sculpture. As you see, that is very important information to share with you. I apprenticed to Belgian portrait sculptress, Jeanne Gevaert in Atlanta, after school during my junior and senior years of high school (1970-1972). The summer of 1972 as high school wrapped up, I began an apprenticeship to goldsmith/avant garde artist, Peggy Ackerly (in Atlanta)(Peggy was a protege of Sam Kramer, Greenwich Village, NY, NY, who she worked under from 1943 - 1964, until his death). I apprenticed to Peggy for a year, and opened a studio in an old duplex she bought on 9th Street (in Atlanta). I moved to Coconut Grove in August of 1973, and enrolled in the school of architecture at the University of Miami. At the University of Miami I studied architecture under Andres Duany, who is the father of the New Urbanism Movement in architecture, and Philadelphia architect, Philip Steel. In Coconut Grove, and later back in Atlanta, I continued to make jewelry throughout my college years. The financial crisis in the 1970's crushed my family, so I did not complete my studies in architecture, but returned to Atlanta and earned an BBA at Georgia State University. After college, I entered the construction business, and began designing and building homes in 1980. I was very young for a homebuilder, so I designed modest middle class homes, The homes I built were attractive and logically oriented, but nothing exciting. Older builders would tease and ridicule me for trying to make improvements on the basic format.