I put off this invitation as long as I could. Something keeps telling me it’s a bad idea.
Mostly because I’m the wimpy kid who can’t take the leap off the high dive.
I eyeball my car, then nearly have a heart attack when Hopper pops up by my shoulder, looking like some sort of post-apocalyptic blacksmith in a leather apron.
“What’re you doing? Why’re you standing on the sidewalk like a weirdo?”
He sounds like something out of an old Pacino film with a sunshine grin made for children’s programming. That’s…huh.
Weird.
A thought slips through my fingers before I can catch it.
I clasp my chest, completely dramatic, and he laughs, patting my shoulder a little too hard. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I point to the building with my cheap canvas portfolio case. “You said this was an artist space.”
“I said it was a warehouse.”
“Yeah, but this is like”—I gesture to the width and breadth of it—“an entire foundry.”
“The process of creating bronze sculptures takes a lot of space and a lot of equipment.” He lifts a shoulder. “Besides, warehouse space in Austin costs nothing compared to warehouse space in the boroughs, so it was a no-brainer.”
Yeah. I forgot my birth father is rich in his own rightandmarried to a billionaire. I definitely can’t relate.
“Your version of nothing and my version of nothing are two completely different nothings,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck, hyperaware of the fact that my entire outfit is secondhand, and that my shoes came out of a last-chance bin.
Maverick would have such a field day with this.
Stop thinking about him.
“This one had the best lighting,” he says, gesturing for me to follow him. “Foundry’s to the left, creative space to the right.”
I walk in and am immediately immersed in the sounds and smells of the casting process. Wax. Heat. Metal. The floor is polished matte concrete, the ceiling is a series of massive skylights, and the entire space is split two-to-one by a brick pony wall that soars high while stopping well short of the ceiling. Greenery adorns the top of the wall and shows up in odd corners. Ferns, pothos, and palms give the place a lush look, far from its industrial purpose.
Half a dozen folks in heavy aprons mill about on the foundry side, which takes up the larger portion of the floor and is subdivided into five or six areas. I’m not super familiar with the process of bronze sculpture, but I can recognize a furnace when I see one. There’s also what looks to be a walk-in kiln. Most of the folks, though, are in another area waiting around a massive cauldron with red molten metal.
“That’s bronze, right?”
He bounces on his toes. “Yes! Petal’s pouring her first sculpt today.”
He then rattles off the process from clay to wax to casting to pouring to finishing, negative and positive molds, and…wow.
“We covered bronze casting in one of my classes, but I’d forgotten how involved it is.”
Hopper shakes his head. “This process is hundreds of years old, and in all that time, they’ve never been able to improve on it. Can you imagine that?”
I shake my head. “It’s mind-boggling.”
Angela Lansbury lets out a plaintive meow, and Hopper sends her a worried glance.
“I forgot to ask… She won’t get into mischief, will she?” Hopper asks, rubbing the back of his head. “I always assume animals won’t leap into the furnace, but maybe I shouldn’t?”
I laugh as I follow him into the smaller, brighter creative space. “Her interests are eating and napping, in that order. She’ll stay right next to me.”
The sounds of metal work fade to a comforting background symphony.
I step to the edge of the high dive again and look over the edge. I won’t be jumping today, or anytime soon, but I’m starting to imagine taking the leap.
