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5 July 2015 2.00 h

Neus Hosta & David Ventura

Giant-makers

In 1982, near Figueres, Na­vata (Alt Em­porda) Neus Hosta and David Ven­tura cre­ated a world of fan­tasy: a work­shop ded­i­cated to the cre­ation of card­board fig­ures and spe­cial­is­ing in the mak­ing and restora­tion of Cat­alo­nia's pop­u­lar tra­di­tional gegants (gi­ants) and cap­grossos (giant heads). David is a jew­eller by pro­fes­sion and was a mem­ber of the pup­pet show the­atre group Col·lec­tiu d'An­i­mació de Barcelona until 1980, while Neus is a pot­ter, trained at the Es­cola Mas­sana in Barcelona and the Es­cola de Ceràmica de La Bis­bal D'Em­pordà. To­gether, their tal­ents cre­ate splen­did fig­ures.

It takes time and pa­tience, hard work and skill. First, a clay sculp­ture is made to fash­ion the plas­ter mould which is the base of the card­board fig­ure. Then it is dried and painted. In the case of the gi­ants, a very im­por­tant part is fin­ish­ing it off in a de fined style and cre­at­ing its unique cos­tume. To do this they have the help of a de­signer who fash­ions the clothes under their su­per­vi­sion.

The gi­ants are built in parts: head, arms, hands... and then pieced to­gether. Neus and David also make smaller re­pro­duc­tions of gi­ants, as well as made-to-order fig­ures to suit all needs.

In re­cent years the part­ners have of­fered courses which teach how to make a cap­gross and par­tic­i­pants get to take home their own cre­ations. You can find more in­for­ma­tion on their web­site.

1. Pot with brushes

to paint the fin­ished mould.

2.​Painter's palette

where all that colour comes from.

3. Pot of rab­bit skin glue (primer)

to pre­pare the card­board for paint­ing. It is the same that painters use to con­di­tion the can­vas be­fore paint­ing.

4. File, knife and sand­pa­per

to pol­ish the fig­ures.

5. Sander for card­board and card­board pieces - wet stone

, all used to make the moulds.

6. Car­pen­ter's glue

(inthe can yel­low) to join the dif­fer­ent parts. It is used to join the parts to­gether along with col­la­gen, or rab­bit skin glue. Sta­ples are also used.

7. Flour, rab­bit skin glue and cop­per sul­phate

The mag­i­cal mix to lit­er­ally bring every­thing to­gether. It is used to dampen the lay­ers of card­board that will give us the con­sis­tency we need. The sul­phate pre­vents fungi and ter­mites and is a nat­ural preser­v­a­tive.

8. Sta­pler

to put the dif­fer­ent parts to­gether once they have been made. Once dry, the sta­ples are re­moved.

9. Mod­el­ling tools

a col­lec­tion of knives, chis­els and mold­ing tools.

10. Ball of clay

, the raw ma­te­r­ial!

11. Fin­ished Cap­gross

what the fuss is all about.

12. Gyp­sum plas­ter

needed to make the moulds. Once dried they are cov­ered with plas­ter for the final fig­ure.

13. Plas­ter mould

with its card­board copy along­side.
www.​ven​tura​host​a.​net

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