About The Foundry

High in the hill country of south central Texas, there has existed since 1975, a paradoxical union of creative aesthetics, renaissance alchemy and space age technology."

Michael Hall's Studio Foundry has become the collective sum of his accomplished art career, which began in 1965, during his military service in the U. S. Air Force, where he managed to blend his aerospace engineering background with graphic and sculptural art courses and positions.

As a graphic artist, Michael continually explored his enthusiasm in the realm of three dimensions. Upon discovering the unique permanence of cast bronze, he moved from Dallas, where he held his last graphic arts position, to be closer to nature and nearer his native home. In the peaceful hills of Driftwood, Texas, he began to create sculpture full time, using his engineering experience to set up a lost wax bronze casting foundry as a means to produce his own sculpture. In the past three decades he has become one of the leading consultants in sculpture and modern as well as ancient casting techniques.

“As a sculptor, my goal has always been to create another form of reality; something between what can be experienced and what might be imagined. I design my art to maintain an intricate balance between fantasy and fact, between inner and outer reality.”

As a highly respected teacher, Michael has offered his experience and knowledge as well as his full service studio and foundry to serious sculpture students. Michael Hall's Studio Foundry has been accredited with the University of Texas, Texas State University, Louisiana Tech and Austin Community College for more than ten years. He's found great reward in sharing his expertise with numerous interns and apprentices throughout the years.

The vibrant quality of Hall's work is due, in part, to the fact that each of the five generations involved in producing his sculpture in bronze is strategically controlled by his own hands.

“I cannot be entirely satisfied with a medium until I have passed through and above all the applied formula that the medium demands. I have to know it before I can subordinate it.”

The combined expertise of creating and producing quality bronze sculpture was recognized by the World Bank's International Development Association. In 1983 as their Sculpture and Art Casting Consultant in Katmandu, Nepal, he worked with the native sculptors and founders, introducing technological improvements to their traditional lost wax casting technique, as well as demonstrating alternative sculpture designs. As a two year resident sculptor in Katmandu, Hall remarks he learned as much as he taught while surrounded with the history and myths of ancient art and alchemy. He presented lectures and reports to the art departments of leading universities in Katmandu and Bangkok, Thailand, and published a practitioner's manual entitled, “Lost Wax Casting in Nepal,” for the benefit of Nepal's metal casters.

Wildlife provides inspiration for much of Michael's work. The variety in Asia's animal kingdom was supportive to a wealth of new ideas, and upon returning to his home and studio; he felt that even after his second trip around the world, Driftwood was still a comfortable place to live and to create. He began sculpting a series of Himalayan Single-Horn Rhinos, the third edition of seven being one lasting image entitled, “Rhino Crossing” in which he chose to portray this seemingly prehistoric creature of immense strength and dignity in a docile river scene, cooling himself in the slow moving water, while grazing . The gentle turn of his head implies the Rhino's intent harmony with the two white water fowl, as they occupy protruding rocks and tree limbs.