Due to the sales of bowls through the gallery-shop and Gary Myers Galley (Maleny) I have got back into creating Pods and Starburst bowls.
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| ©2014 Barry Smith - Fire colour on a bowl |
I have started a number of bigger bowls and Pods; but along the way go distracted and decided to make a bunch of small Starburst bowls. Why do I call them Starburst bowls? Well the bowls are shallow and conical in shape; and by hammering the bowls in two different directions I am able to create the effect of lines spreading out or bursting from the centre point.
I started these bowls using real discards of metal - even I thought I might not use these pieces.
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| ©2014 Barry Smith - Almost discarded end of trays |
But once they were trimmed and sunk into a shallow bowl form you can see they have potential. I cut disks of metal out of most of the pieces once I had annealed and straightened them a bit; but I also kept the pieces that did not go full circle - I wanted to see how they turned out.
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| ©2014 Barry Smith - Rudimentary bowls |
After a couple of rounds of annealing and hammering they took on ragged raised bowl shapes.
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| ©2014 Barry Smith - Roughly raised bowls |
And using another stake and hammering in a counter direction the stardust shape appeared.
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| ©2014 Barry Smith - Starburst bowls in the rough |
And of course there can always be a casualty along the way - a split bowl.
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| ©2014 Barry Smith - Split on a fold linen in the piece of metal |
Once the Starburst bowls were ground and polished they showed why it is good not to discard even some of the not so appealing metal.
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| ©2014 Barry Smith - Three Starburst bowls from round disks |
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| ©2014 Barry Smith - Three Starburst bowls from odd shaped 'disks' |
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| ©2014 Barry Smith - Backs of Starburst bowls |
And the casualty and the stray copper bowl even look good.
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| ©2014 Barry Smith - Small copper and brass Starburst bowls |
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| ©2014 Barry Smith - Split in the brass bowl is evident |
The small Starburst bowls are about 44-50mm in diameter and 10-15mm deep.
What a transformation, Barry! The odd shaped bowls are very appealing... more natural , like sea shells or fungi.
ReplyDeletethese bowls are beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI was thinking just what Robyn did - they remind me of shelf fungi, beautiful.
ReplyDeleteMagical manipulation B, from very ordinary pieces to truly beautiful! I love the split one, even a mistake has real beauty. Stunning post.
ReplyDeleteHi R, EB, VA & C - thanks for checking out this effort of moving from scraps to some beauty.R & VA - you are so right about shelf or plate forms of fungi - I think that may have been the inspiration for the Starburst bowls. C - I'm sure there are a few folk who also admire the split bowl - in fact it will be given away as a small birthday token to a friend. EB - thanks for checking out my blog. All - Go well. B
ReplyDelete