SHAYE'S MELLOW
by Don Dougan (United-States)

This piece is an homage to Shaye Cohn, musician and band leader/arranger/composer for the traditional jazz New Orleans' street band Tuba Skinny, which draws its inspiration from the early jazz, ragtime, and blues music of the 1920s & 1930s.
Before Tuba Skinny Shaye played a pocket trumpet, but with Tuba Skinny she plays a cornet —Shaye's cornet is a vintage horn which formerly belonged to a jazz cornetist who used it for over fifty years. The cornet's silver plating is partially worn away and the overall color is what I tried to achieve on the silver-leafed element in the sculpture. The glass elements suggest her instrument's sound, with the slate the band's sound.
Shaye's unique mellow tone from the cornet suggests the blues feeling at the heart of much jazz music. Her phrases, often muted and in the background, are brilliantly interwoven into the sound of the band's music.

wall sculpture: aluminum leafed resin casting, green Connemara slate, iridescent slumped glass, acrylic lacquer - 11"x 12⅛" x 2" - 2024

Clay was modeled for the lips, which were subsequently molded and cast in plaster and silicone rubber molds. The rubber mold was used to cast a urethane resin positive which was leafed with aluminum. The casting was trimmed on the reverse with sanding discs, and fitted with metal threaded T-nuts to attach to the slate backer. Rotary tungsten-carbide burs held in a die grinder were used to cut the recesses into the casting and into the slate for fitting the glass elements. The glass elements were cut to shape and edge-polished with diamond discs. A silicon-carbide grinding wheel in a 4-inch right-angle grinder was used to texture the left-hand side of the slate backer.

Modeling of clay, mold-making of the clay model, casting of resin in the mold, modifying of the casting with files and sandpaper, applying of oil-size for leafing of the casting with aluminum leaf. The bright silver of the aluminum was toned-down with multiple layers of slightly blue-black tinted acrylic lacquer to suggest the aged look of the silver plating on Shaye's cornet. Recessing leafed casting and slate for inlay work, grinding textures into slate, attaching elements with machine screws and epoxy, routing a pair of t-slots into backer to attach the work screws protruding from the wall.