Thursday, February 17, 2011

Our Inner Calders...

I got out a stamp set from PJ Tool & Supply. You should definitely check out their new line of metal stamps called ImpressArt. The stamps come in a variety of fun fonts and interesting characters. I definitely recommend them. Not only are the stamps really nice quality, but the guys running the show behind the scenes are awesome!

Above is a bracelet that I hammered out. It was a nice re-introduction to forging and working with such heavy wire. While it is simple and unembellished, don't let it fool you. It took hundreds of blows to hammer out the heavy-gauge wire and forge it into a bracelet. I love the texture of the hammer strokes and their uneven beauty. It has the nice feel of "sturdy". When I'm dead and buried and a dozen more generations walk among the earth and are interred themselves, this bracelet will still be around unless it is purposefully put to an end. It's the kind of thing that the archeologists of tomorrow will uncover. The blows of the hammer – the hammer held in my hand – will ring on far into the future.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love it!

Alice said...

It looks like fun! I love your bracelet's simple beauty!

kate mckinnon said...

metalsmithing is irresistible to me for its capacity to endure beyond me.

I see the Internets as the metalsmithing of writing. Once something enters the web, it is strikingly difficult to remove.

I think thousands of blows is more like what it took to forge this; you worked it for a long time.

Heidi Post said...

Cool bracelet -- I loved your Archeologists of the Future thoughts! I work for archeologists (I produce their reports), and many times when I've been photographing some artifacts, I wonder about the person who made the pot or flaked away the rock, etc. Unlike us, those people had no concept of the Archeologists of the Future. But I think about them all the time :)

sandi m said...

Great piece. Think I need to drag out my hammers.

raquel roysdon said...

I like your blond want to now follow you , thanks for mentioning the stamps, I will check it out!