Artistry in concrete 2005: pushing the limits with decorative concrete.

More than 14,000 people visited and revisited the Artistry in Concrete demo at the 2005 World of Concrete (WOC) in Las Vegas--twice the number that visited the demos at the 2004 World of Concrete. About half of the people who attended the event came back to see the progress--two visitors came

Two strong elements lead to high-quality decorative concrete work: a knowledge of concrete basics and creativity. The Artistry Demos focus on the latter. Each year CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION magazine and its co-sponsor, the Decorative Concrete Council (DCC)--a council of the American Society of Concrete Con tractors (ASCC), invites 12 people who are doing creative work with concrete to participate in a live demo, showing visitors to the woe what's possible. The goal is to encourage creativity with concrete, a material with so many potential uses. Here are the artists and their work at this year's Artistry in Concrete Demonstrations.

Greg Demmert

Demmert & Associates,

Glendale, Calif.

Two presenters and a designer were involved in this demo. An artist, Vickie Jackson, Oklahoma City, designed the work, and Doug Bannister, The Stamp Store, Oklahoma City, installed the decorative materials during the concrete placement. He cut patterns in thin plastic masks, through which volunteers embedded 3/8- to 1/8-inch light blue, dark blue, white, and black crushed glass to create a patterned look. Workers also dusted on white color hardener to provide additional interest in some areas. After finishing, however, the special features were below the surface, and the slab looked like plain concrete.

Demmert then used a planetary-head floor polishing machine on the minimum 4000-psi concrete. Starting with 40-grit diamonds, he doubled the grit size with each pass, finishing with 3000 grit. The grinding operation was performed dry, with a vacuum system collecting all the dust. The final step was to apply a blue dye in an acetone solvent on all areas except the white color hardened areas, to bring the coloration together.

Lee Gamble

Creative Surfaces and Designs,

Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Gamble's inspiration for this work came from Japanese books about kimono patterns. She used curving lines to separate the different patterns in a combination of geometric, curving, and floral blocks. Some areas were layered with different patterns, and there were different scales between patterns. Volunteers who helped with this work included Karl Caldwell and Melanie Royal. They used paper patterns to lay out the work for diamond cutting, 4-inch angle grinders with diamond blades for cutting pattern lines, adhesive Modello stencils to mask a pattern for the application of colored trowel-down overlays, chemical stains, water-based stains, dyes, and gel acids. An application of a yellow-brown water-based dye as a finishing touch unified the different patterns and colors. Finally, everything was protected with a water-based sealer.

Cary Grant

Floor Seasons,

Las Vegas

Cary and Julie Grant own a company that specializes in patterned cut concrete graphics that are colored with chemical stains. At the demo, Cary cut lines and hollowed out areas using a diamond blade mounted on an angle grinder. They also applied graphics using adhesive stencils for masking and defining lines during the coloring process. An unusual feature of their work was a cobblestone pattern with wide, uneven grout lines cut with a special fast-cutting abrasive bit mounted on an angle grinder to deepen the joints. They achieved variation in color by using different colored chemical stains and by diluting them with water to achieve different color intensities.

Ake Grunditz

Fine Design,

Alameda, Calif.

This artist's specialty is carving intricate patterns and details in overlay cement. He uses a proprietary mix, manufactured by ArcusStone, which simulates limestone. For the demo he handcarved ornamental trim on a fireplace mantel, a process sometimes referred to as a "cartouche"--a scroll-like ornament or tablet as an architectural feature. Grunditz first created his design on paper and cut it out. Then he mixed the polymer cement, adding additional polymer mixed 50/50 with water, and plastered it vertically on the mantel approximately 1 1/2 inches thick (thicker than he needed for the final product). Next, he pressed the paper design on the wet mix and sprayed black paint over it. When the paper was removed, the pattern was revealed on the wet concrete mix. Using tools more common to clay sculptors, he removed unwanted polymer cement. As the mix began to stiffen, his choice of tools changed. Grunditz worked for several hours carving and detailing to achieve the final three-dimensional result.

Mark Haen

Adobe Coatings,

Mesa, Ariz.

Haen's specialty is working with polymer cement coatings and epoxy finishes. He started his project with two trowel-down applications of black polymer cement. He then applied a vinyl adhesive stencil to the surface and cut out the shape of the flames--removing the flame portion of the stencil. Using yellow, orange, and red colored overlay cement, he then troweled the colors into the exposed part of the stencil, mixing them with his trowel to get a multicolored flame look. He finished with an application of "color shift" epoxy that took on a copper, silver, and green-blue iridescence depending on the light.

Julio A. Hallack

Concrete Innovations

by Hallack,

Turlock, Calif.

Hallack created a labyrinth design that mimicked one from the Chartres Cathedral in Paris during the 12th century. The belief then was that walking through labyrinths would drive away evil thoughts. Starting with a stencil, Hallack traced lines on his slab, which was cast with an application of white color hardener. Then, using a die grinder with a 1 1/2-inch-diameter diamond blade, he carefully cut the pattern of the labyrinth, which also included very small radiuses. He used black and turquoise chemical stains to provide the additional color.

Al Mahairi

Topcoat,

Hillsdale, N. J.

Hannelore Dean and Al Mahairi are partners who worked together at the Artistry Demo. As a first step they built a wooden wall framework that resembled a rockscape. They created the rough shape of tree roots and vines with flexible plastic tubing. Flowers and leaf shapes were cut from metal screen and shaped by hand. Next, they applied overlay cement to the rough shapes. The next day they applied a final layer of polymer cement to add detail to the features. Sometimes they used a plastic bag for texturing. They added color by applying dyes and both chemical-and water-based stains.

Mathew Newman

Surfacing Solutions,

Temecula, Calif.

Newman's overlay demo started with a 1/4-inch-thick self-leveling, tan-colored overlay cement. Using a tinted liquid release, he then textured the entire surface with a textured mat and stamped a border around the perimeter of his work with a grapevine pattern. The border area was separated from the rest of the slab by hand stamping a "hammered edge" pattern line. The following day he used an angle grinder with a diamond blade to saw an additional line on the outside of the grapevine pattern.

In the center of the panel he applied an adhesive stencil with an ornate pattern cut into it. This became the mask for a sprayed application of a polymer cement microfinish with a high-volume, low-pressure air sprayer (HVLP). He colored the finished work with several chemical stain colors, which were brush-applied while the stencil was still in place. An application of solvent-based acrylic sealer completed the work.

Steve Ochs

Images in Concrete,

Magnolia, Ark.

Ochs teaches art at Southern Arkansas University and over the past couple years has come to view concrete as an artistic medium. He arrived at the WOC with a drawing that he created using his son as a model. Using grid lines on the drawing and on the slab, he transferred the image freehand to the concrete. Then he cut the lines of his image into the concrete with an angle grinder and diamond blade. At each corner, to commemorate the Southeast Asian Tsunami, he bonded fired clay stoneware that had the date of the disaster. Next, he colored the graphic with several washes of water-based stain. The first application of color was with thin tints so that they would penetrate the concrete surface. Using dry-brush techniques and an airbrush, he was able to mix colors and provide highlights to complete the work. He used about 30 different colors for the project.

Buddy Rhodes

Buddy Rhodes Studios,

San Francisco

Working with Heriberto Esquivel, his foreman and principal trainer, Rhodes demonstrated his precast "hand pressed" concrete countertop technique--a process he is known for. The first step involved the construction of a mold for a countertop with an integral sink. Using a concrete mix that they have developed, Rhodes and Esquivel placed handfuls of very low slump concrete, packing it into the mold. Pressing in handfuls of concrete produced random voids. After the concrete set, they mixed and placed a slurry concrete to fill the voids. The slurry can be colored to offer contrast, or the coloration can be subtle. When the slurry coat hardened, they diamond polished the counter and sink and sealed it all with a penetrating sealer.

Shellie Rigsby

Acanthus Company,

Piano, Texas

Rigsby's ambitious demo used a wide variety of materials and equipment. The project included adhesive stencils, images copied onto adhesive-backed paper, plastic templates with ornate designs cut in, liquid resist applied through templates, chemical stains, powdered pigments, garden fertilizer, coffee grounds, and thin overlay cements. She used a variety of tools, including a "wasp"--an air-driven vibrating point that is held like a pen and scars the surface of concrete. Some areas were sand-blasted with equipment that picked up the effluent. Rigsby and her teammates, Kemper York, Maria Holland, and Jack Holland, spent all the available time creating four different layers of designs in the finished work: one cut into the concrete surface, one on the surface, and two layers of overlays above the surface.

Brian Vicari

The Concrete Colorist,

Benicia, Calif.

Vicari used circles and intersecting arcs to create a simple design, which he highlighted with color. For his first step he troweled down three thin applications of polymer overlay cement. On the second day he covered his 10x10-foot slab with adhesive vinyl stencil and laid out his design using a string compass. After cutting patterns through the adhesive stencil with a hobby knife, he removed the portions that would receive dark blue overlay cement. He hard-troweled the darkest portions of the pattern with blue overlay cement so that the color would appear even darker. After removing the stencils, he washed the slab with a solvent-based blue dye to bring all the elements together.