A Recipe for Museum Lava: 



Take 400 square feet of rock , 

 add liberal quantities of latex. . . 



by Tamara Biggs 

 Project Supervisor 



(reation of the lava flow — just inside the entrance 

 to "Traveling the Pacific" — began with a trip to the 

 Big Island of Hawaii in February, 1988. We wanted to 

 find out if we could collect material or find a suitable 

 lava site to cast. It was our conviction that a lava flow 

 belonged in the exhibit, since lava builds islands in 

 the Pacific, and we knew about how big we wanted it. 

 But that was all we had figured out. 



One of our group suggested that we excavate part 

 of a recent lava flow, package it, ship it to Field 

 Museum and reassemble it; or better yet, lay a large 

 plate of high-tempered steel in the path of an advanc- 

 ing flow, then just pick up the plate, full of lava, 

 when the flow had cooled! After learning that it's 

 against Hawaiian custom to remove lava from the is- 

 lands, we decided instead to fabricate a fiberglass rep- 

 lica, cast from a mold of a real lava flow. 



Early in March we began purchasing supplies for 

 a mold-making trip to Hawaii, scheduled for May. 



Making a mold of 400 square feet of ground formation 

 here on the mainland would have been challenge 

 enough, but we were now faced with the additional 

 problem of transporting our supplies across thousands 

 of miles of ocean. 



We bought small tools and supplies in Chicago 

 and shipped them by air freight to Hawaii. The bulky 

 materials which would become the finished mold were 

 purchased in Los Angeles and shipped by barge to 

 Hilo, Hawaii. Everything had to be on the dock in 

 Los Angeles by April 18 to make it to Hilo in time. 

 The situation seemed well in hand, with positive 

 assurances from our Los Angeles suppliers until the 

 day before the dock cut-off date. Then a supplier 

 phoned to say a factory mishap had destroyed our 

 latex rubber, but they would see what they could do 

 by the next day. Somehow, the materials made it in 

 time. 



Exhibit preparator Pat Guizzetti and 1 arrived in 



22 Preparing polyurethane foam jacket for Hawaiian lava flow mold (1988). Tamara Biggs 



