The little-known source of America's bronze artwork in Chester

In the forlorn city of Chester, on a spot where creative magic - construction of oil tankers by Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. for wartime and commercial use - once was worked precisely and abundantly, two brothers are unobtrusively continuing the artistic tradition.

Larry and Randy Welker - the "La" and "Ran" of Laran Bronze Foundry - might not be high-profile, but the creations they and their workforce of nine have enabled the last 30 years sure are.

One of them, the National World War II Memorial in Washington, has earned Laran serious industry credibility since its unveiling in April 2004.

For the memorial, the family fine-arts casting business - Larry's wife, Diane, is an owner; his son Lawrence IV is a metal worker there and, like his father, an artist with his own furniture line - crafted 38 bronzes.

The four 18-foot columns, eight eagles with 10- to 12-foot wingspans, two wreaths 10 feet in diameter, and 24 plaques were created by sculptor Ray Kaskey, a Pittsburgh native for whom Laran has done other work, including the imposing and complex 10,000-pound Gem of the Lakes statue in the lobby of Chicago's 311 S. Wacker Dr. skyscraper.

The work is humbling, said Larry Welker:

"We're working on other people's artwork who might have worked on a piece for two, three years, entrusting us to take a clay piece and turn it into something that will be viewed. It's an honor."

Yet the little foundry with the expansive portfolio is largely a well-kept secret on the 2 1/2 acres at East Sixth and Upland Streets it has called home since 1986.

"It's amazing that people don't know about this," renowned Glenside sculptor Zenos Frudakis said during a recent visit to Laran, to which he has entrusted more than 100 of his major pieces. Among them: his 5,150-pound U.S. Air Force Memorial Honor Guard sculpture, now installed at Arlington National Cemetery. It is 16 feet tall at its peak (the tops of both flag standards); its four airmen stand eight feet tall.

"I have pieces in Japan and Africa, and they're all cast from here," Frudakis said from Laran's main building, whose skylights and three spacious floors of 9,000 square feet convinced the Welkers it would be ideal for their company. "They're a treasure. They've done so many monuments around the country."

On that particular day, some Laran craftsmen were working on an elaborate bronze wall covering for an elevator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Others were busy with a project for the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington.

In November, Laran completed and installed a $1 million Frudakis work - an 1,800-pound bronze book titled Knowledge is Power - in front of Dr. Herman D. James Hall, home of Rowan University's College of Education.

For all the notice given the sculptures it meticulously converts from clay to bronze - jobs that typically take six weeks to three months and can range from $100 to $100,000, depending on time and weight - Laran lives a relatively lonely existence.

There were as many as 200 foundries during Philadelphia's industrial heyday - when Lawrence Welker III, 60, of Wayne, who majored in fine arts at Carnegie Mellon University, and Randy Welker, 59, of Wilmington, an engineering major at St. Cloud State University, were growing up in Shippensburg - but there are now no more than a few.

The Welkers said their main competitors were in New York and Lancaster, not that those are the only challenges. The recession, for instance, was no joke.

"When the economy slowed up, the first thing to dry up was art," Larry Welker said. Laran's annual revenue, typically more than $1 million, dropped 50 percent, he said.

Another challenge is the fluctuating price of bronze, now about 95 cents a pound after a rise to about $4 a pound during the economic collapse, the Welkers said.

Over the years, they have made adjustments to improve their efficiency and price competitiveness, and to enable Laran to handle bigger projects.

Those changes included converting from a gas-fired furnace to a used induction furnace powered by a diesel generator, and implementing sand casting to augment lost-wax processing.

The Welkers envision a future influenced by new technology, such as 3D metal printing, that will allow for rapid prototyping and will make foundry work less dirty and hot - and possibly more welcome in places off-limits to it now. That could include downtown office buildings, Larry Welker said.

Employees, he added, will need to be more computer savvy as the foundry takes on more of a laboratory look.

One unchangeable comforts him, he said: "Long after we're gone, our pieces will still be here."