Rustnstuff: Raising bowls

Showing posts with label Raising bowls. Show all posts

Friday, February 8, 2019

Picking up the pieces

Though it is Friday there has not been much time in the garage-studio. There has been creative work on the block that in the main entailed building stepping-stone paths. But there has also been time spent with family and on community stuff.

I decided to polish and rivet the large vessel I hammered from a serving tray; and also finish a set of Fungi Bowls. You might remember the metal in the biggish vessel could not handle the stress of hammering even though I was annealing it regularly - too much nickel in the metal I think.

As you can see from the photo below the Fungi Bowls look gorgeous sitting on a cube of hardwood.

The vessel requiring riveting came up well with grinding and polishing and is now ready for the rivets.

I aim to finish the vessel-bowl over the weekend.

Sunday, December 2, 2018

Some fractures can be beautiful

It is quite some time since I have made bowls that require a lot raising hammering work on a steel stake. I want to make a series of pods as I only have one set left in my cabinet. The pods vessels are a bit challenging given that you need to push the metal pretty hard to go beyond the simple bowl shape. So in a way working on a bowl that went beyond the simple form was an opportunity for me to regain my skills.

I also wanted to test the metal in silver-plated placemats to see if it will be suitable for the pods. The process started with taking the backs off the placemats and cutting off the turned over edges. The end result was a 180mm circle of metal.

I sunk one of the flat circles to create a rough but lovely shallow bowl.

Then the bowl was marked up to guide my hammer strokes on the stake.

I found that the early rounds of hammering shrunk the bowl by about 10m per round; but after that each round achieved a shrinkage of about 5mm. The final diameter of the bowl was 120mm.

But the heavy hammering took its toll - a split developed on the edge of the metal about halfway through the process and increased in size with subsequent rounds of hammering.

I think the split has a certain allure; but I'm debating as to whether I will rivet it or just live it as it is.

Friday, September 5, 2014

Hammering for joy

Over the last little while I have been doing quite a bit of commission work; and much of this has included hammering metal. However there always seems to be a qualitative difference between doing creative work to order; and just doing it for it's own sake.

Today I got down into the studio-garage for more than half the day and hammered a couple of new Starburst Bowls; and finished off three raised bowls that I had started a couple of months ago. Such a good feeling to know I had not lost the touch or the joy of taking recycled metal to places I wanted them to go.

The Starburst bowls - third lot of hammering and back onto the annealing tray; and the finished bowls.

Different stages of the raised bowls - beyond open bowls but not pushed to pod form.

We are now off to the opening of a calligraphic and paper craft exhibition - in support of fellow artists.

Friday, February 28, 2014

A few bowls on Friday

Sometime ago I was asked by Gary Myers (artist and owner of Maleny Art Gallery) if I would be interested in selling some of my 3D work through the gallery. I procrastinated a bit but decided to show, and hopefully sell, some of my raised bowls.

Over the last couple of days I have worked pretty hard to create a few new bowls to exhibit in one of the glass display cabinets. I made a few more of what I'm now calling my Starburst bowls. These are about 10-11cm in diameter and about 5-6cm deep.

A couple of small egg shaped Pods. I have left most of the fire colour on these small Pods as it gives them an aged look.

And I made another small conical bowl. I love the texture and colour of this bowl (about 6-7cm long and the same in diameter).

None of the bowls are meant to be functional in that they all lie on their sides - no flat bottoms. But if folk want to use them to hold things I can provide a Perspex or wooden curtain ring in which they can rest upright. All are made from recycled metal. Photos were taken with the trusty iPhone.

Maleny Art Gallery is to be officially opened tomorrow night - Fiona and I will be there for the party.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

I was supposed to be sorting my studio areas ….

I promised myself that over the weekend I would finish sorting my studio areas because they were in chaos after pre holiday and open studio work, recent commission and purchases in Arizona and NYC. I did make a good start but yesterday afternoon I succumbed to the lure of metal; and this morning was given over to a printmaking 'play day' with a couple of fellow artists.

I just had to finish the pods I started on Friday; and I wanted to test a new stake I purchased from Greg Wilbur in Portland Oregon. I wanted to see how the stake dealt with making tiny raised bowls. Well you can see from the photo below that the stake worked well. The tiny bowl in my hand was hammered from a square scrap (about 3.5cm square) of brass from an old jardiniere.

The copper rivets on the bases of the Pods have worked a treat - a good way to fill the holes and create a design feature?

I also used the stake to round in the edge of the more conical of the 3 pods in the photos. The Pods look great - all are quite small - all about 40-50mm long and 43-50mm in diameter. Two of the Pods are silver plated EPNS and one is silver plated copper. The small brass raised bowl looks good with the group.

I gave the larger Pod another polish and made a small brass stand for it out of a slice of brass tubing.

©Barry Smith - Baptismal cup Pod (formerly baptismal cup) with brass stand

A good art weekend; as well as a good social weekend of catching up with friends. Oh well - I guess I will sort the studio areas during the week!!!!

Sunday, May 12, 2013

High shine

I got back to polishing the cluster of bowls I was hammering on Friday. The high polished finish often makes it hard to photograph the pieces because they pick up so much colour or reflection from objects in the room including me holding the camera. There are several different shapes of bowls in the cluster: a full pod shaped bowl; a couple of more cone shaped bowls; a couple of the more rounded shapes; a couple of classic shallow bowls; and the bowls made from the goblet bases.

Full pod bowl with folds in the opening edge.

Conical bowl shapes with natural hammered lips. Brushed brass over copper bowl 6cm diameter by 4.5cm deep; and silver over copper 7cm in diameter by 5cm deep.

More rounded raised bowls. Silver over copper 4.5in diameter by 4cm deep; and silver over brass 6cm in diameter by 5cm deep.

More traditional sunken bowl forms. Larger bowl is 14.5cm in diameter and 4cm deep; and small bowl is 7.5cm in diameter and 2cm deep.

And the goblet bowls - polished. The most tightly hammered (raised) of these bowls is 5cm in diameter and 4cm deep; and the least raised is 6.5cm in diameter and 3cm deep.

But the weekend was not all about polishing - I have started work on personal shrines for the August-September exhibition. More on those as they are completed.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Bark spiral earrings & raised bowls

As is the case with most artists - I tend to be progressing many things in a similar timeframe.

At the moment I'm working on stuff that will go into: a display on recycling and art in the local library; a couple of open studio days Fiona and I will have in July; our joint exhibition in August-September; and of course the on-line shop. So it is often a case of doing what is a priority; or what I rather just feel like doing for the sake of creating.

The bark spiral earrings fall into the later category - I have been wanting to do a couple more pairs of these earrings since I made a prototype for Fiona some months ago. She wears them reasonably frequently - so I guess they have appeal.

Anyway I got to finish the two pair below.

The first set were made from silver-plate over brass; and the second silver-plate over copper.

And I got stuck into raising a few bowls as you can see from the cluster of worked bowls waiting in the annealing pit for the next round of fire.

I finished off the 3 bowls made from the bases of goblets - but I raised them to different depth - gives a sense of profession of the bowl raising process. I love the hammered texture both in and outside; and I think they turned out well given they were made from bases I initially put aside.

Fiona and I are off to the Up-Front Club to see who won the prizes in the Essence of Coffee exhibition-competiotion. Not holding out a lot of hope for my Steampunk influenced coffee mugs.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Sparkling trio of raised bowls

Amongst the other demands of life, family, work-work and community-work Fiona and I have been sneaking in bits and pieces for our art-work: submissions to a couple of artists book exhibitions; applications for me to a couple of 3D sections of art exhibitions; of course checking out the erection of the art-pathway; and setting up the printmakers exhibition. I now feel tired since I wrote that. But over the last couple of days I got a bit of time to complete the trio of raised pod bowls.

The photos below show the bowls after the final lot of annealing and hammering - still with burn marks etc. These bowls are about 50-60 mm in diameter and height.

And then after polishing.

I am very pleased with the final products - good to go to the National Gallery of Australia's shop.

And as I indicated on Facebook - I was given a two page profile in a new recycling oriented magazine called Junkies.

And a photo of my anodised aluminium was also used in a centre spread. So that was good. And you are correct if you concluded that I am not featured on the front cover.

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