Dear Friends, Clients and Associates,
I am pleased to tell you that Architectural FOAM and Art was commissioned to create signs for the new «Paws On» exhibit at the Brevard Zoo. I have attached photos of the Whale’s Tail Snacks and Sundries shop as well as the signage for the entrance to the «Paws On» area.
The 2.5 million expansion includes a large water play area, a 20,000
gallon aquarium reflecting the wildlife of the Indian River Lagoon and the petting area with Maggie the deer and goats Ivory and Reeses.
Our zoo is a prize of the community. It is well worth the trip at any age.
Please keep me in mind for your special project and visit my website to view other projects completed.
Sincerely
Sharon Dixon
Architectural foam lends itself well to being sculpted into all manner of surprising forms. From the faux Roman pillars of Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas to the fanciful accents in every Planet Hollywood across the world, it’s one of the most versatile and resilient materials in the realms of both architectural and purely artistic sculpture.
Its light weight and forgiving nature have also made it the material of choice for many Florida theme parks, with their emphasis on eye-catching, three-dimensional signage and whimsical structural effects. Disney alone is a virtual museum of architectural foam’s fantastic potential. During a brief stroll, you can see foam rocks and trees, embossed ceilings and fantastic friezes, many designed to create the illusion of antiquity.
In her roughly seven years as President and principal Designer for Rockledge’s Architectural FOAM & Art, Sharon Dixon has made her share of odd sculptures. But when I ask her to name her most unusual project, she’s simply stumped.
«What’s unusual?,» she responds. «A whale’s tail coming out of a porthole, a logo that spans 55 feet, an exploding car, a gargoyle, an Indian temple? I really don’t see any of them as unusual, I see them as challenging, and I love to figure out how to engineer something I’ve never done before.»
Sharon remembers that she was always working on some kind of art project during her Ohio childhood, often shaping her mother’s aluminum foil into roses she later painted. «Getting art supplies was always at the top of my Christmas wish list,» she tells me. Before receiving her graphic design degree and moving to Cocoa Beach in 1989, Sharon worked with Disney, Universal, SeaWorld and Kennedy Space Center, helping them create custom gift and stationery items for their retail locations. But it was while working on her design degree she began studying sculpture techniques in a fine arts class, something she continued to dabble in long after graduation. «I had a project that I was working on that required a mold to be made,» Sharon says. «I didn’t have any experience in mold making, so I stopped in at a local graphic shop. While I was there, I noticed a partially carved piece of foam. I thought, ‘Hmmm this is very interesting’.»
Sharon found out where to purchase the raw material and started experimenting with it. «My original thought was to offer custom freelance services to the foam shops in the area, but after a very short time I realized that if I was going to make it work, I needed to invest in the equipment and learn the engineering program to be able to run some of the equipment that would be needed.» To that end, she founded Architectural FOAM & Art, which offers clients design, drawing and production services for custom architectural projects. «I guess you could say my exact title is: President, CEO, Director of Marketing, Artistic Designer, CAD Technician, Painter, Finisher and Shipping and Receiving Manager,» she says breathlessly. She employs a variety of architectural products, from hand-carved custom relief medallions and other architectural details to machine-cut forms such as crown moldings, capitals, corbels, relief carvings, columns, and medallions. Sharon’s 30-plus years of design experience provides customers with an unparalleled opportunity to create custom accents found nowhere else.
When she’s designing architectural elements for houses and buildings, Sharon draws inspiration from the Old Masters and history to evoke a time-worn style. Often, clients already have an idea of what they’re looking for, sometimes bringing in pictures she can work from. Sharon starts out with a design concept and «draws» it with the aid of CAD (computer aided drafting), which converts the image into a code that can be read by one of her computer controlled hotwire machines and begins cutting the expanded polystyrene foam, or EPS. In the case of a hand-carved piece, the hotwire machine can help cut out a cookie cutter-type shape for further dimensional manipulation, which is completed with special hand tools. Once cut, the pieces are finished and hard coated for the the environment in which they’ll appear, each can be further finished and painted with a variety of products that can approximate the appearance of wood or metal or stone. Expanded polystyrene is incredibly durable, economical, long-lasting and doesn’t rot or decay, making it the ideal material for exterior architectural elements and details.
But it’s those unusual products that are likely to intrigue people the most. Locals will recognize her work on The Brevard Museum Of History and Natural Science and the newly-opened Dinosaur Store and Museum in Cocoa Beach, with its impressive Egyptian and Mayan-themed decorations. Others include the colorful «Paws On» sign for the expanded section of the Brevard Zoo, which includes a new petting area, a large water play zone, and a 20,000-gallon aquarium reflecting the wildlife of the Indian River Lagoon. Also at the zoo, is her whale tail sign for a snack and sundries shop in the expanded section. And that exploding car? It was designed for Cocoa Beach High School’s performance of «Grease.» Currently, Sharon’s largest piece is the 55-foot high logo for Michelina condominiums in Cape Canaveral.
Regardless of whether they’re capricious sculptures based on cartoon imagery or stately cornices inspired by fin de siècle decor, each of her creations appeals to both aesthetic sensibilities and practical design. «Unless I’m working from an actual architectural rendering,» she explains, «it seems that most times clients may have an general idea of what they’re looking for, so in most cases, I have the ability to create custom designs for for them. Knowing the parameters of my material and equipment allows me to design to achieve maximum results. I love hearing a client say ‘That’s exactly what I had in mind.’ My goal is to to aways try to achieve more than what’s expected.»
Contact Sharon Dixon at 795-4533 for all your architectural design and accent needs, including custom design, fabrication and installation. Architectural FOAM & Art is located at 419 Hawk Street in Rockledge. She also has a small display in The Home Center , at the corner of Murrell Road and Viera Blvd. in Viera. Having recently installed machinery to recycle waste foam into packing material, Sharon has gone to great lengths to maintain a proper balance between her work and the environment. Visit her website at: www.architecturalfoamandart.com
