One of the things I love about salvaging and recycling metal objects including EPNS trays. EPNS trays offer so much - not only bowls from the centre, leaf forms from the sides, found jewellery from handles and decorations but the left overs can often be turned into inspirational words. From these offcuts I have continued to produce sets of seven inspirational
Daily Words such as those in the beaten EPNS bowl below.
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| ©2012 Barry Smith - EPNS Daily Words- bowl and inspirational words |
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| ©2012 Barry Smith - Daily Words - inspirational words |
And I make single words as part of
Inspirational in Your Pocket such as those requested below. One exciting little thing was that the request included three words in Italian - I thought that was exciting to think that these scraps might end in the pocket or purse of someone in Italy and be a point of inspiration or reflection.
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| ©2012 Barry Smith - Inspirational In Your Pocket goes Italian |
I did get to polish the Friday fiddle bits over the weekend. As you can see from the photos below I have tried to both polish and preserve. Polish the rough and sharp edges off but where possible retain the patina and fire colours as is the case with the bowl and the foldformed leaf forms. I polished the spiral with a brass wheel and it transferred a little brass to the copper.
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| ©2012 Barry Smith - Small EPNS bowl polished but retaining the patina and fire scale inside. |
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| ©2012 Barry Smith - Small EPNS - outside is highly polished |
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| ©2012 Barry Smith - Spiral polished |
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| ©2012 Barry Smith - Spiral polished - brass highlights |
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| ©2012 Barry Smith - Leaf forms for earrings - rainbow fire effect retained |
We have had some glorious sunshine over the weekend - makes one come alive and Fiona and I even got out in the garden to do a little weeding. So given all the achievements and experiences it has been a good weekend.
OHHHHH!!! i'm so happy that you retained the patina!! YAY!! look so beautiful esp the bowl and the rainbow leaves :) i also love the pocket words ... from the photographs, the silver surface looks so magical, almost like undulating quicksilver. reminds me of Dumbledore's Pensieve in Harry Potter!
ReplyDeleteBarry....all gorgeous work! I do love those words and can just imagine the lovely way they would feel in my hands...or to come across them in a pocket...sweet reminders. Seems you are strong and in good health once again...yay for sunshine and the ability to weed a garden!
ReplyDeleteI love all these works Barry, and I am so happy you feel well enough to be creating again!
ReplyDeleteAll the best!*
* non stop and on a continuous basis!!!
Sounds like you are almost brand-new Barry... hooray.
ReplyDeleteit all looks so beautiful... and i had to smile with luthien - so glad you were able to get your polishing done but keep some of the heat patina...
ReplyDeletethat is a wonderful commission to make words in another language!
always wonderful to see the beautiful things you are bring to life.
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy my two leaves and my word charm that you gave me! Sits on my coffee table in it's beautiful bowl. Do you have to heat your steel and then stamp it or can you cold stamp? Just wondering the process.
ReplyDeleteLooking good, cant wait to see some in the flesh! About 1pm Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteLove the patina! Always much better to me than shiny and brand new. I'm wondering...how many words can/will you put on a piece of metal? My mantras come to mind:
ReplyDeleteJust do it
Keep it simple [or KISS]
Focus
No fear
Would you be interested in producing a set or two of those?
Glad you are feeling well enough to get out into the garden. Love that you preserved some of the patina on the new pieces.
ReplyDeleteL, P, AM, JM, MJ, TL, SZQ, P, J & S/R - thanks for comments - I think I have the answer - balance between shine and preserve patina - I yak we all love the natural patina look - but I think we also tend to like the smoothness of the polish - bit of a ring-yang thing. L- I will now need to coat the patina to preserve it; like the idea that the polished EPNS looks like stamped quicksilver. P - it was good to get in the garden and no negative repercussions is good. AM - thanks for the non stop positive energy. JM - getting there. MJ - yes I was tickled to be asked to do another language. SZQ - I do cold stamping on soft metals but imagine one might want to do red hot stamping on iron. J - can do multiple words etc. About 9 months ago I did 25-30 stamped metal pieces for a lad to choose his music practice scales out of a beaten metal bowl - a present from his mum - lots of stamping and multiple words on small pieces of EPNS. S/R - as I said to P - the garden experience was special. Fiona & I managed to weed the 'hill' in front of the house and the veggie garden - rediscovered our potato patch. All - go well and be well. B
ReplyDelete