Deborah Childress
BlindSpot Mirrors

Deborah Childress is a mixed media sculptor born in Marin County. She graduated with Honors in Art at University of California, Santa Cruz. Her sculpture is included in many private and corporate collections. In 1995, she began producing handmade mirror frames for designers and select retail stores.

The mirror frames’ design is sculpted by hand in plasticine to create a negative mold. The design process often incorporates natural or manmade objects. A master copy is cast directly from the plasticine. Design details are then perfected and a urethane-rubber mold made from the master prototype. The entire mold-making process can take up to150 hours before a single frame is produced. Once the mold is ready, the frames are individually cast using fiber-reinforced gypsum cement. Each casting then requires hand detailing and finishing with the application of four to six layers of metallic pigment.

The process, while enabling reproductions of minute design details, provides a structurally strong, relatively light mirror frame.