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In this episode, Joe dis­cusses the prac­ti­cal­i­ties and busi­ness con­sid­er­a­tions of work­ing with an over­seas foundry.

Kevin Box started out in print­mak­ing then tran­si­tioned to sculp­ture, devel­op­ing a tech­nique of cre­at­ing his designs in paper then cast­ing them in bronze for an origami aes­thetic.  He spent sev­eral years work­ing in foundries before trav­el­ing to Thai­land to man­age a sculp­ture project, where he met the Von­s­ingth­ongs and began a cast­ing part­ner­ship that allows him to cre­ate qual­ity work with flex­i­bil­ity of scale.  His pub­lic com­mis­sions are installed in sev­eral South­west loca­tions as well as Cal­i­for­nia, Okla­homa, Arkansas and Minnesota.

Thai Metal Crafters Co., LTD., or TMC, was founded in 1992 by Suk­itch Von­s­ingth­ong,  who left a French foundry with a team of five metal crafts­men to estab­lish his own facil­ity in Thai­land.  Join­ing his father in 2007, Karn Von­s­ingth­ong brought his busi­ness edu­ca­tion to TMC.  The foundry is a 45-minute drive from down­town Bangkok.

The Von­s­ingth­ongs now super­vise 90 work­ers in a 150,000-square-foot facil­ity, offer­ing cast­ing, mold­mak­ing, chas­ing and patina ser­vices.  They pour bronze and stain­less steel for sculp­tors around the world, ship­ping the fin­ished pieces in containers.

 Men­tions:  Alice Aycock, Ran­som & Randolph

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