silversmith, sculptor and architectural metalworker
These images are from a series of tall ‘chased’ silver vases in which I was trying alternative ways of developing a design with long sweeping lines. These were much longer and bolder than I had tried before. There are differences between the finished surface texture of the different vases. One has been finished with many thousand hammerings using a textured punch to achieve a rich surface such as you might find in tree bark, another has a more delicately nuanced surface. One is oxidised to emphasise the sculptural qualities and another has the design chased in a heavier thickness of silver to allow a more extreme development of the sculptural nature of the form. In all of these pieces the design that forms the starting point is much the same but the treatment is different. In each case much thought went into slight adjustments to the design and each vase took a minimum of 200 hours of careful, delicate hammering. They all have bases with holes into which the vases drop, thus keeping the vase shape to a very slightly tapering form for the greatest simplicity. The first base’s of Stainless steel were replaced by cast glass and finally by blocks of polished black slate as I experimented with the look of different materials with silver.
These bowls are turned to my design by Ray Key in burr oak. The largest is 580mm in diameter and very heavy, I think Ray said 45 kilos to begin with. He first roughed it out and then partially sealed to slow the drying process , it took 8 months from first going to see Ray. I ordered the silver at the same time which was a good thing as in the intervening months the price almost doubled. The silver rim is made in 8 sections, chased into pitch and slot into grooves in inner and outer rim of the bowl. Cathy, the client, requested a bold and asymetrical design. Fitting the pieces together and into the bowl gave me some headaches.
I recently recieved a silversmithing commission from St. Mary’s Church at Nether Alderley – where the rector and parishioners wanted to commission a processional cross and an altar cross. They found me through the Goldsmiths’ Company’s website (http://www.thegoldsmiths.co.uk/) after seeing some of my silver and gold beakers. I worked closely with the rector to develop several design submissions and am glad to say both crosses are now in use. As with much of my work I had to break new ground, working with new techniques and systems – I’m always learning.
Back in 2007, Birmingham Jewellery and Giftware Federation ran a competition for the design of a pair of silver wine coolers for their board room. This was a brilliant opportunity to let myself go with an extravagent design which I drew very quickly (see 3rd image in gallery below) without any expectation that I would end up having to make it – the headache of which balanced the joy of winning the competition.
Thankfully L.J.Millingtons (http://www.ljmillington.co.uk/) spun the silver inner liners for me, which was a very tricky job. The outer bodies I chased in silver, the design spiralling clockwise and anti clockwise and each with a pair of winged figures as handles. Whilst these were cast in a foundry in the UK I had also cast similar figures myself for use in another sculpture myself whilst working in Philadelphia with my good friends and sculptors Julia and Shane Stratton who have their own small bronze foundry (www.shanestratton.com www.juliastratton.com).
I went to work in the extraordinary Kohler ‘Arts in Industry’ program for the second time in 2008. Unable to make what I had planned I instead made a series of figurative sculptures of which the walking woman is one.
In this Artists residency you are given a house to share with 3 other artists, a studio you can drive a forklift around and 24/7 open access to use of the factory facilities North of Chicago close to Lake Michigan the village of Kohler has the Kohler iron foundry and ceramics factory, a pub, supermarket, a house to share and very decrepit bicycles with which to commute between them. It is an intense, surreal and hermetically closed world.
http://www.kohler.com/corp/arts/kohlerandthearts.html
These beasts were the result of being given two sea shells at Goldsmiths Fair and being asked to come up with a design for them. I went away and thought about the medieval and renaissance use of shells and natural objects such as coconut shells with silver and gold. Then I remembered seeing a drawing by Leonardo of a soldiers head with a shell shaped helmet and tried making some drawings along these lines before It occurred to me to have fantastic beasts instead of sea snails and did many drawings of men, women, angels and beasts hatching or escaping from shells as if from a chrysalis. They were cast first in silver and gilded and I cast another version in bronze when in Philadelphia.
I have included some process photographs from when I was working with friends who have a bronze foundry in Philadelphia where they cast using the ceramic shell process. It was close to an idyllic experience living, working and casting in bronze alongside sculptor friends Julia and Shane (www.shanestratton.com www.juliastratton.com). My room which was also my studio was across the street from them but I also shared their studios. I first met and worked with Julia at the Kohler iron foundry in Wisconsin, she and her husband Shane are so extraordinarily generous with their time and knowledge and also enormous fun which makes me homesick for the city of Philadelphia.
These parapets were cast in aluminium at the Swan foundry in Banbury (http://www.swangroup.co.uk/) from carved plywood patterns. I learnt the process when working for 4 months in an iron foundry in the States. This was on the Arts in Industry residency program at Kohler in Wisconsin.
We were allowed total freedom of the factory facilities, working with pattern makers, grinders and those pouring the metal. We worked as if the factory was there for us with freedom to come and go at all hours of the day and night, using the forklifts, the pattern shop, everything, my only accident occurred when I shattered the wooden crash barrier by riding my bicycle through it as it was being lowered .
