The Amaranthine Temple is the home of Amaranth Fae. This race of Faerie folk are the sacred builders of the Faerie universe. They use their dark arts to bring forth roots of the World Tree to grow and weave into intricate natural structures. Because the World Tree has its roots buried in all three of the Triad worlds (faerie, physical, spiritual), their structures have the ability to transcend and exist in each world. The Temple is jealously guarded and all beings are warned away lest they be caught up within it and lost from their homes forever. The Amaranth are not a gentle people. They exist more within the World Tree than they do within their own realms and anything that can harm the World Tree harms them also. There is a story that the only way for them to raise the roots is to sacrifice one of the Amaranth to the root, forever entombing it within. But this has never been confirmed as the Amaranth allow no one to approach until the roots have completely their growth.
Sculpture Construction & Information
The Amaranthine Temple will be constructed on a 16" tile base. Composed of multiple pieces of cypress driftwood. Within the center will rest a raised circular platform with a central raised piece of wood and an altar area. The complete structure when completed will be done in metallic purple with a hi-lite purple overlay.
Step #1
The first step is to raise the center of the temple. Simply using a plastic bowl which will later become completely hidden beneath the center of the temple, the bowl is placed dead center on the 16" tile and epoxied permanently to it. Drying time for the epoxy approximately 30 minutes to the point where it is firm enough to work with.
Step #2
A flat wooden circle has been epoxied to the top of the bowl to give a flat working surface for establishing the central tower and altar will rest.
Step #3
A central core tower is epoxied atop the wooden platform. This will be the central root structure from which all others will be added around it. The wood chosen was selected for the interesting natural opening at the bottom and for its strength. It will be the only piece which is not cypress.
Step #4
This sets up the first of the outer towers and connects it to the main root structure of the central tower. Using a simple piece of dry foam in the center will create less weight to the overall structure and use less clay to create the root base.
The following photos show the development of each of the outer towers and how that hot pink bowl and the dry foam disappear completely from view forming one root core that stretches out from the center to each of the outer towers.
Step #5
This is the most important step in the process. By overlaying the root structures with foaming glue it will create an impervious shell over the natural clay that will keep it from breaking off. The glue is only extended a short way up each piece of wood to let the natural wood grain stay in place. Drying time is about an hour to a good solid surface that can be painted.
Step #6
The sculpture is completely black based now to fill in all the cracks in the wood before detail painting begins. This is done with regular flat black spray paint applied in three coats
Step #7
The outer towers and root structure have been base colored in purple violet metallics.
Step #8
Securing the tower orb is a tricky thing. I hated to lose the peaks on the tower but there was no other way to secure the orb to the top securely. So I used a rounded ball of clay sunk into the top of the wood and molded back to look like a natural extension of the tower. It was then covered in a light coating of foaming glue to secure it in place on the wood and secure it to the orb. Once dry it will be painted to match the wood. The central tower was also painted in a hi-lite violet, slightly different than the outer towers.
Step #9
Detail painting to match the color scheme in the orb was added. At this stage the sculpture is 90% complete. The base needs to be sanded a few more small details to make it complete.
Step #10
Fine tuning includes sanding the base with a white crystal coarse sand. Using Mod Podge as the underlay and then sprinkling the sand into place. Dry time about an hour before the excess can be removed.
Step #11
The final step is the installation of the central altar using a crystal shard embedded in clay under the eaves of the central tower.
At this point the piece is essentially complete except for the polyurethane overcoat. Once that is done the piece is completely photographed, descriptions completed and a selz page set up for purchase.
Here is the final image of the piece along with the link to the final page
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