Bronze Africa ‘Bait Ball Ballet’
This is really out of my league and it was very difficult to do, but when someone asks then someone better do it, right? How do you sculpt water? How can you sculpt water cascading down the sides of a fish? How do you sculpt droplets hitting the waves around? Heck I don’t know so I better make sure that I get the patina right. The fish is a Yellow Tailed Tuna and the pictures that I had to look at to achieve this show that it is indeed a very beautiful fish.
I hope that you enjoy him as much as I struggled to sculpt him.
John Tolmay
Born in Southern Rhodesia in 1943, John Tolmay grew up immersed in the African bush, where an early fascination with wildlife and nature inspired him to begin drawing his observations. After agricultural college in South Africa, he traveled to Europe and the United States, working as a cowboy in Nebraska and New Mexico before returning to Rhodesia in 1966 to ranch.
Tolmay began guiding African hunting safaris in 1974, an experience that gave him an intimate understanding of wildlife, movement, and anatomy - knowledge that would later become fundamental to his work as a sculptor. He completed and sold his first bronze in 1989 and has since devoted himself to capturing the animals and experiences of a lifetime spent in the wild.
A committed conservationist as well as an artist, Tolmay founded Zambia's Nyawa Pilot Project, promoting community-based wildlife management and a sustainable relationship between rural communities and their natural resources.
