These pieces represent a much larger body of both custom and regular production work from over the last ten years. The individual design of each project is very important to me, so for that reason no two pieces are exactly alike. No use of jigs or factory made parts here! This stress on design, plus the freedom permitted by hand forging each element, means that each objects represents an original work of art.
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These two pieces were commissioned for display / sales at Brenda Roy Designs (in Alliston, Ontario). They both are a more standard rectangular profile mirror surface. The metal flows around the frame, but are fairly simple pieces. The first uses the tendril / feather technique I developed, forged from angle iron. The second uses flat stock curved and spiralled. |
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"Golden Egg' was created for the exhibit 'Traditions & Innovations' in 2003. There is a relationship between the hot work of the forge and cold forming thinner or softer metals. Here copper sheet is dished and curved to hold the mirror, which in turn is supported by an aggressively forged steel base. |
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This is another in the series of hand mirrors. In 2001, the 'Earth, Air Celtic Festival' in Goderich called on artists to donate items for a fund raising silent auction. This was the piece that I contributed. The design springs from the hilts of a number of Celtic Iron Age swords, where a human figure cast in bronze forms the handle. |
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Here are several early large wall mounted mirrors, both consisting of a rectangular panel set into a forged frame. The first was commissioned as a wedding gift (2/98). It has a more standard square frame on the outside. Two of the fill rods pull out of the frame and end in tubular candle sticks. The overall size is about 30 x 24 inches. The second piece was part of an order for an upscale gallery shop in Virginia Beach (4/ 98). Originally it was also to have a square frame, but the sweeping curves worked so well that I decided to leave it as you see it. The central mirror here is about 12 x 24 inches The last image of the wall mirror is one of several oval format pieces created in 2001. This is a fairly large piece, the mirror is about 10 x 16", the whole is about 24" tall. The two main elements (the 'wings') are very aggressively forged from 1/4 by 2" flat stock. These are tied together through other flat bars drawn to tendrils and leaf terminals. |
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These two pieces were actually the result of some experiments in technique. "Celtic Hand Mirror" (5/97) is inspired by another rather famous Celtic Iron Age object, the original of cast bronze. I had wanted to work with a bar contoured with multiple shoulders, then bracketed by rectangular rods. The mirror surface is made of highly polished brass. "Hand Mirror #2" (9/97) was made up to showcase the potential of flexibility of small rods, it uses similar elements to the other hand mirror. In this case, a small round glass mirror is held in a dished brass cup. A happy accident resulted in the back of the brass developing a wonderful splotchy green patina. (Both of these pieces are now in private collections, Hand Mirror 2 in that of Liesbeth Zwart.) |
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