Burkinese Bobo People Decorative Figure

This Burkinese decorative figure is cast by the Bobo People in bronze.

The figure is made with the lost wax method. Starting with a bee’s wax form, artisans sculpt their models and then cover them with banco, a mixture of donkey dung and mud which has been arduously pounded together with a pestle, the same material used to construct homes in Burkina and other nations around the world.

After baking under the midday Sahelian sun for a few hours, the form is baked in white hot coals. The figures get turned so that the wax leaves the model through the small hole completely. After the wax is melted completely from the model, it’s time to heat the bronze. Artisans use any recycled bronze they can find — bullet casings, bronze knobs from gas tanks, and old bits and pieces they’ve collected.

Carefully pouring the molten bronze into the stone-hard banco model, it’s left to sit for hours, sometimes days, to harden. Once cooled, the earthen model is broken by hammers and small chisels, revealing a rough, many times incomplete, bronze statue.

The abrupt edges of statues are smoothed with large metal files, and that’s when the pieces, borne from donkey dung and bullet casings, truly shine.

As a final touch, artisans add patina, breathing life and dimension into their pieces.

Because banco models must be broken away from the bronze that lies beneath, every lost-wax bronze statue is unique.
Source:
https://www.tenthousandvillages.com/blogs/fair-trade-products-lifestyle/ancient-art-bring-lost-wax-to-life-in-burkina-faso?srsltid=AfmBOoq0-zCDFvodu9u43t0ThXE7YC0C1RNchq43optxVIkDa_2bUaZ6