Название: Artist Blacksmith Design: The Art Behind Blacksmithing and Metalwork Автор: David Freedman
Издательство: Independently published
Год: 2019
Язык: английский
Формат: epub
Размер: 11.9 MB
Blacksmithing in the modern age has become as much about art as it is about shaping metal. The artist blacksmith must rely on an ability to design to produce original and enduring metalwork, turning steel into sculpture, welding details together in the forge. Casting around for ideas, the artsmith must look at many influences from nature to architecture and beyond. This book looks at the unique design approaches and influences of metal artists, from sketching with wire to paper templates. From the natural world to historical references, artist blacksmiths develop their ideas and hone their techniques. The variety of methods employed is endless and their ingenious solutions endlessly fascinating.
David Freedman, an artist blacksmith for over 20 years, draws upon his own work and influences as well as the masterful work of blacksmiths and metal artists he admires. With design sketches, scribbles, photos and ideas from diverse strands of the craft, David looks at what makes good craft skills into great pieces of art, providing inspiration for anyone interested in metalwork and design. Artist Blacksmith Design features the work and design ideas of seasoned artist blacksmiths Brian Russell and Stephen Rook as well as the unique work of Bex Simon and incredible wire work of Portuguese artist David Oliveira.
It’s a surprising fact that design is frequently overlooked in blacksmithing. Even highly skilled smiths will often focus on putting a piece of work together accurately and with expert methods, but with only a cursory nod to aesthetics, in many cases not using paper sketches at all. From blacksmithing’s roots as a functional trade, serving many other crafts and industries, an element of this practical approach remains. A vital aspect of the craft is the smith’s ability to take on any job that walks through the workshop door and send the customer on their way satisfied, and in many cases for smaller jobs this remains an important aspect of their creativity. But often this approach is carried into larger projects and indeed some smiths can pull it off, though it’s my feeling that some scribbling and visualisation of the end goal is essential for an aesthetically pleasing result.
Of the increasing number of people interested in taking up the art, many are understandably attracted to the physical aspects of forging metal, but from my experience of the many enthusiastic people who have come to have a play in my workshop I have found that having ‘the eye’ is a far better gauge of the work they will produce than any great mastery of technique. I have no doubt that many smiths more able than I would dispute this, but looking from a purely aesthetic point of view, I feel that for those who want to create artistic metalwork, vision is key. This is not to say that all artist blacksmiths must have great artistic ability, but that they need to develop their own way to visualise their work before lighting the forge. I hope that this book can help provide inspiration, not so much through examples of beautiful work that many other books can provide, but by glimpsing into the design techniques and approaches of artists who truly have ‘the eye’ for it, regardless of the methods they use to produce work.
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