California sculptor Carol Gold grew up on a dairy farm in western Massachusetts and studied art at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; Boston University School of Fine Arts, MA; and the Museum School in Boston. Before she embarked on a sculpture career, however, she spent 14 years raising her family. In 1977 Gold resumed her art career in earnest, enrolling at the College of Marin in Kentfield, CA, to study bronze casting. Encouraged by her results with the medium, she built her own foundry in Northern California, which she operated for many years. Gold shapes her figures and animals from wax instead of clay because she likes the way it can be manipulated to convey emotion and mood. "Wax enables me to sketch-in my figures rapidly," she says. "It has a lightness to it that I like." Her work is characterized by rich patinas in colors that range from warm tones of gold and copper to various shades of turquoise.