Studio, Clay & Tools

Frudakis Studio

Our Glenside, Pennsylvania studio is modeled after those of America’s historically significant sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Daniel Chester French, both listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The studio is a renovated, 200-plus-year-old horse barn encompassing approximately 2,500 square feet and illuminated by nine skylights. Sculpture is created both in the hayloft, with its soaring 20-foot ceiling, and throughout the former horse stalls, tack room, grooming areas, and carriage spaces below.

Giudicci Sculptural Clay

The materials used in Zenos Frudakis’s sculpture practice are as distinctive as the studio itself. While contemporary artists often rely on newly manufactured supplies, Zenos works with clay and tools that are 50 to 100 years old—materials inherited from earlier generations of sculptors.

At the heart of this practice is Giudicci clay, regarded as the Stradivarius of sculptural clays. This oil-based clay, produced in Italy between 30 and 100 years ago, is reusable and does not dry out. It is prized for its exceptional responsiveness and vitality—qualities that allow sculptors to achieve an enduring, lifelike presence rarely matched by modern clays.

Giudicci clay was used by master sculptors such as Daniel Chester French and Augustus Saint-Gaudens in the creation of iconic American monuments, including the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Traditionally, senior sculptors bequeath their tools and clay to younger artists whom they believe will fulfill the promise they aspired to achieve with their own art. Zenos owns and continues to use some of the original clay employed in the creation of the Lincoln Memorial, as well as clay from Saint-Gaudens’s Shaw Memorial (famously depicted in the film Glory). Hundreds of pounds of Giudicci clay have been bequeathed to Zenos by senior sculptors as a gesture of confidence in his ability to use it to continue their legacy of powerful and enduring works of art.

Hand-Carved Sculpting Tools

enos’s sculpting tools are equally remarkable. They are hand-carved from exotic hardwoods and crafted by sculptors to perform highly specific tasks, such as shaping eyes or articulating the delicate inner structures of ears. He possesses a large collection of these tools, also passed down by senior sculptors, and continues to use them with care and respect—honoring both their function and the legacy they represent.