Louis Longi creates bronze scuLptures that derive from the figure to inspire and express the fortitude of human wiLL.

Sculptor Louis Longi opens the door for his guest, but he is distracted. His 9-year-old daughter, Isabella, is home from school with a tummy ache, and Marley, the dog, is nipping at the visitor’s clothes. Louis excuses himself to deal with Isabella. His house and work space in Laguna Canyon are modest, the furnishings spare. But imagination is everywhere—in his sketches and paintings hanging on the walls, sculptures in progress, blueprints for a live-work space he plans to build, and in conversation about work, children and making a living as an artist. “My work is all inspired by everyday life, by what we all go through, the strife and struggle, just trying to make ends meet, fulfilling our ambitions, our successes,” Louis explains as he ushers his guest into a temporary studio in his backyard, a space he recently moved into because of the need to consolidate expenses while developing the property. “The work is all inspired by human will, how we can move on and struggle beyond everyday life and reach that ultimate spirituality, that ultimate understanding of what our calling is.”

Inspiration

Both the form and content of Louis’ work have been informed by his experience living and working as an artist. For example, unlike other bronze sculptors, Louis sculpts directly in wax—a technique he developed out of necessity early on his career when working as an apprentice for accomplished Denver sculptor Ed Dwight. “I couldn’t afford at the time to do all the molds … so I actually sculpted right in wax and went directly to the casting process,” he explains. “That’s where I developed my style and technique.”

Most bronze sculptors create their artworks using the lost wax foundry process. First, they create a clay model of their sculpture. Then they make a mold of the model out of latex or rubber covered with plaster. Once the original is removed, the mold is filled with wax to create a perfect replica of the original design. The wax replica is then dipped in ceramic slurry, which is cured and then heated to melt the wax, leaving a vacant ceramic vessel. Molten bronze is poured into the ceramic vessel to create the bronze piece.

Louis eliminates the expensive, time-consuming mold-making process by sculpting directly in wax. This unusual technique reveals itself in his finished product, which incorporates many of the residual markings from the wax sculpting process. Louis’ most recent work in particular incorporates horizontal lines that wrap around the torso and limbs of his figures. The striations are actually the marks left by the hand trowel that he uses to scrape and shape the wax.

“I used to erase all the evidence of my wax casting process … but over the last 10 years, I’m showing the entire process. I’m not hiding it at all … it’s becoming more raw,” he says. “The layering is a byproduct of the process, but it also symbolizes what we all go through in the every day where you layer things in your life.”

Because Louis sculpts directly in wax, which hardens in about five minutes, his work is impressionistic and abstract, suggestive of the human figure but not limited by it. JoAnne Artman, whose eponymous Laguna Beach gallery represents him, calls Louis’ style flowing and evocative of deep human emotions. “He keeps experimenting, changing and developing,” JoAnne says. “What comes through Louis’ work is how dedicated he is to his art and how passionate he is about his work. That’s what makes his work special to me.”

Louis’ sculptures are also special because they are all original, JoAnne points out. By not making molds, Louis must create original wax sculptures for each bronze piece he makes. And since the ceramic vessel that holds the molten bronze breaks apart when the bronze cools, all of Louis’ sculptures are one-of-a-kind and cannot be exactly replicated.

Expression

A Las Vegas native, Louis always knew he was an artist, and his calling earned him a full scholarship to University of Nevada, Las Vegas to study art. But it wasn’t until he took a required sculpture class in college that he decided to focus exclusively on bronze. “The power to defy nature and manipulate molten metal—that did it for me,” he says.

Cirque du Soleil recognized Louis’s talent in the mid- 1990s and commissioned him to create small, limited edition bronze pieces to complement their Las Vegas performances. For the next five years, Louis created nine different pieces inspired by “Mystere” and “O,” which he reproduced using the traditional lost-wax process and sold in editions of 100. Louis ended his work for Cirque du Soleil in 2004 because he was concerned that the shows had become too commercialized. “I

Walked away from a lot of money, I really did,” he says. “But I understand and I know my calling, and I’ve known it since I was a little kid. For me, it was always about trying to be the best artist I could.”

Louis not only creates his sculptures in wax, he also does all his own metalwork. “No one touches my work as far as creating it,” he says. “Why rob myself of that true beauty of continual creation from start to finish?”

Creation

Louis does the raw casting at a foundry in Buena Park, but all his design work, wax sculpting, welding and finish metal work is done in his Laguna Canyon studio on land that he hopes soon will become a home and work space for up to a dozen other artists.

“This project is something I’ve been dreaming about for 23 years—living and working in an art community, and there really isn’t a better place to do this but here in Laguna.” That’s how Louis describes Long(I)/Live/ Work/Create, a three-building, 16,000-square-foot artist live/work space that he plans to build on his property in the canyon.

“Laguna needs to keep the artists here, but we’re slowly getting pushed out for many reasons,” he says. “In order for me to afford Laguna Beach, I have to develop a site where artists can contribute to the building expense. The goal and ambition is to create a space that encourages creation as well as production of art.” With his plans already drawn up and a favorable response from city staff, Louis hopes to break ground in early 2010 and complete the project by the end of 2011.

Long(I)/Live/Work/Create will not be the first time that Louis has given back to the community he has called home since 1996. Each year, he donates a sculpture scholarship to Laguna College of Art and Design. He also creates small, original sculptures for Laguna Beach Arts Alliance to give to honorees at its annual red carpet gala.

Even in his temporary digs, Louis seems at home in Laguna Canyon, where he has created a live/work space that complements his desire to share a creative life with Isabella, who is often at his side, drawing, painting and sculpting in the studio. Isabella also served as the model for a public art piece that Louis made for the City of Ventura.

“Isabella came in when I was working on the design, and said, ‘What are you working on, Dad?’ ” Louis recalls. “I’m working on an idea for Ventura, and it has to be for kids,” and she said, “ ‘Why don’t you do a sculpture of me holding all the kids’ art?” Isabella’s idea become a reality shortly thereafter when Louis held a two-week workshop with students from Montalvo School and had them create small wax figures that he cast in bronze. Then he mounted the figures on the outstretched arms of a child-like sculpture, creating a storyteller called “kids play” for Montalvo Hill Park.

“It makes me feel really proud that she can grow up around the arts,” Louis says about Isabella, who eagerly shared her own drawings, sculptures and plans for a new home (in a nearby tree). But Louis reminds her, “We still got homework to do, don’t we?” “Yeah,” Isabella replies, wishing, like her dad, that she could live in her imagination all day long.