Components

©2018 Barry Smith - Hammered section of a well worn silver-plated copper tulip vases

Fiona and I are doing quite a bit of work on our block and house at the moment - so time in the studio can be in bits and pieces.

I grabbed a couple bits of time over the weekend to make components for my flower assemblage sculpture including:

• hammering the cone shaped sections of the flowers to be; 
• making the circular pieces that will fit inside the opening section of the vases; and 
• assembling the 25 stamen.

The cut down tulip vases can look pretty bad at the start - the beauty is under the grime.

©2018 Barry Smith - Silver-plated copper and brass narrow tulip vases with bases cut off

The hammering of the cone sections is done in a very systematic way using two different sized metal forming stakes. And after polishing the hammer marks become a uniting feature of the five flowers.

©2018 Barry Smith - Back from the polishing bench

©2018 Barry Smith - Five hammered and polished sections for the flowers

Again the metal for the sections that will be inside the trumpets are not really much to write home about. After pressing into their shallow bowl shape and given a first clean one can see the potential.

©2018 Barry Smith

©2018 Barry Smith - Pieces are cut and formed to sit inside the top of the trumpet section of the tulip vase.

The stamen are made from 1mm plastic covered stainless steel wire and 6-7mm glass beads - mainly purples and smokey grey-black.

©2018 Barry Smith - Like mini flowers?

©2018 Barry Smith

Other components to be made before assembling include: brass tubes to hols stamen, long copper tube stems and slightly larger copper sleeves to hold the stems and be glued into the base of the trumpets. These pieces will be made in the next week I hope.