An Interview with Sculptor Sheila Coultas

Recently, we sat down with artist Sheila Coultas at the Newfoundland Bronze Foundry to get an update on the progress of the statue, and learn about the process.

Coultas is an artist and welder who started her journey as a textile artist.

“I am passionate about work that gets me dirty and allows me to create,” says Coultas. “I love to explore new mediums and enjoy the creative energy I experience in learning how to do something new.”

Something new indeed! In 2020, PerSIStence approached Coultas to become the first woman to design a piece of public sculpture in the province and the first statue of a singular, named woman in the City of St. John’s - the Armine Nutting Gosling statue.

In 2022, at the project launch, we unveiled Coultas’ maquette of the statue - essentially a smaller version, carved in clay, that served as a design guide for what the full statue in bronze might look like.

“We very much wanted this statue of Armine to be her “in action”, so to speak,” says PerSIStence producing artistic director and project manager Jenn Deon. “We love that Sheila’s design has Armine reaching out to ask you to sign her petition for votes for women!” 

For Coultas, designing a figure sculpture involved a combination of historical research and the careful study of anatomy.

“The process was very enlightening,” says Coultas. “And it’s a lot of fun to figure out the musculature and shape.”

Now that the design is finalized, Coultas has begun the process to make the full size statue of Armine that will be erected in Bannerman Park in 2025 - the 100th anniversary of women achieving the right to vote throughout Newfoundland.

For Coultas, creating this statue has a special personal connection, as she grew up in a home where Armine Nutting Gosling was a hero.

Coultas’ mother is Frances Ennis, a well-known feminist in our community who has walked a path very similar to Armine.

Ennis has also dedicated her life to women’s rights, and has worked tireless with related causes such as adult literacy and anti-violence against women, work for which Ennis has been awarded the Governor General’s Award in honour of the Person’s Case, and the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador.

​“This project feels like a culmination of both my mother’s work and my own,” says Coultas. “It shows how these kind of things have a tendency to knit themselves together.”

THE PROCESS OF CASTING IN BRONZE

• The statue is re-sculpted in clay in life size form.
• From this, the clay is partitioned with metal shims and drenched in silicone to capture all of the intricate details from the clay.
• The silicone mold is overlaid with an outer mold of fiberglass and resin.
• Then the statue is cast again, this time in wax.
• This wax copy is cut into pieces in order to create a plumbing system called ‘screwing’ that creates a channel for the bronze to flow through.
• The next step is to dip the wax pieces in ceramic to create a shell, then the wax is burnt out of the ceramic creating empty space for the statue to take its final shape. 
• Finally comes the bronze, which is melted and poured into the ceramic shell. Once the bronze cools, then the statue can be welded together.​

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