beth

ps george it breaks my heart too to see the tools on the wall.. and this could well be a subject i would be interested in making "ART" about :) i like what you said about the internal contradictions - i agree, and surely this is what makes us more human?

george - i understand where your coming from, and there are certainly many examples of art AND craft that i find pretty discouraging - from the spagetti blacksmith work to the mind numbingly irrelevent piece of conceptual sculpture. these oppinions are subjective though arent they, at the end of the day, and an artists job is not simply to please his or her audience. that would be a pretty shallow path too. im not going to go on and on about this - the original thread was about the mellowness of hammering metal and the zen effect of finding our groove! :) but i do think its worth saying that for hundreds of years now, since artists learned how to be a mirror to life or how they saw life, the job and the aim of the artist was to challenge the viewer and present views of life unseen before., artists have always used the power of the shocking to get their point across- sometimes this is very powerful. it is just like any other job, no more or less sophisticated, but it always produces a love hate response! i only defend it because i love it. ! :) not all art, but the making of art. and as for artist blacksmiths getting paid more than craft blacksmiths, i dont know, it may be in vogue Right Now, but that does not mean the artist blacksmiths are necassarily better, it is simple fashion, and is certainly no worse than nurses getting paid less than advertising execs ! :) its just how life is i guess.

PE i like your chimes - they look good in the tree - i would love to know what the heating etc does to the sound of the metal - im afraid i dont know the answer but i will wait to hear if anyone else does - i would assume its also to do with the thickness in various positions of the metal ..?

george what a strange stance... it makes me sad that you or anyone would be suspicious of being called an artist, associate them with personality issues, and even say your not pretentious enough for the title... :( i would certainly call myself an artist, as i think it covers all manner of attempts at creativity. as you describe your attempts in this craft as "imaginatively and daringly manipulating a medium to demonstrate the innate plasticity of the materials" i am surprised you dont define yourself as one too. a GOOD artists is quite another thing. its all just definitions and ways we have been brought up to feel about certain words though, and as long as we are all creating, we have that in common, whatever we choose to call ourselves. ps - edit - george i just re read that and realised that you were not describing your work as "imaginatively and daringly " bla bla bla which is why i could not understand that you would not define yourself as an artist. i still hold that you create objects, and that in itself is the very creativity you seem to be suspiscious of and basing your views on.... still a strange stance! :)

rory i like the use of trad joinery with the much more free form elements youve made - the textures of these are great! there is a lot of human about this piece! :)

jeff that is so cool! :o she has a great u turn:) do you have any other pictures - im not on facebook so i couldnt access your page..

its for a tractor! :) im such a dumbo i was imagining it was for a train : ) !! but then i often get things Very wrong :) ... hey woods - where has your bike and hat gone....?

that thing looks wicked! what made you do that? i would love to hear how it sounds....thats put a smile on my face :)

totally cool andy - i have no real grip on the different axe designs in history, and would love to know more about them - saw some axe heads at the ashmoleum in oxford yesterday, which were all totally differing in shape... this is a fascinating subject , ive never made one and like to read about you doing it. ! sounds like you had a lot of fun - thanks for the pictures :) nice one :)

great practical advice john! would be awful if you went to the effort and the gas was just as bad....

basher thats true - most of the swan stuff is aimed at farriers - and a bit of a pain for blacksmith use.. its the same old dilemma. do you try to save money by doing it yourself, or do you buy something off the shelf and pay for it by doing what you know how to do... theres not much in it most times :) yeah colleen thats true it has to be worth "nothing" i guess.. i would try to get hold of something second hand myself if i were you. good luck!

can you get round it by getting someone to send it to you as a gift? i think this works sometimes.... worth looking into... i bet someone on here would do that for you...

hi andy im south of uk too :) its fab - u - lous on here - a wealth of info on a wealth of subjects! whereabouts are you?

danger thats very good advice about laying many pieces out and looking for links and flow patterns - i like that idea thanks :) also, i do realise the approach im on about has in no way a direct link to making any Money....(although the honesty required will produce something very resonant, and in my oppinion that makes it ultimately sale able to Someone! in principal..!) this renders it a luxury for most, or at least something that must be squeezed in after money has been earned... and crow barring this type of work in where there are little gaps in your time is not easy, its something that requires a lot of your time and focus.... i am not the main wage earner (thank god) and i can spend at least some of my time behaving in this way, although, not being the main wage earner has other drains on my time! its good to focus on what we want creatively in an ideal world, and perhaps what will yield the finest results :) goo dluck with your dive into the deep end - i will watch with interest - Please share the results!! :)

beca i totally understand the need to be able to hit the ground running when you get in the workshop... i am a mother too, and these things make a big difference! i was going to suggest ebay i sometimes see them on there - a friend of mine years ago built on but it was big and cumbersome, and im not sure how he did it Really becasue i was not interested in that at the time, more the stuff that came out of it! i have a litle gas forge that i got from swan years ago, but somebody got it for a favour for me, and all that stuff - i dont know how much it would be now. they are very helpful at swan, i am nearby to them and buy coke off them sometimes, but i know it all adds up... there are lots of smiths from uk on here and if they notice the thread one of them may have something for sale too. i got my gas forge when my kids were much smaller, thinking it would be faster and cleaner and all that stuff we just said than the coke, but now, i only use it when i run out of coke, and it takes just as long it seems.... if i had to have one or the other it would def be my coke forge.. what do you use now? where abouts do you live too?

danger - :) dont panic - its just my turn of phrase - i enjoy the struggle, it IS the process, i enjoy the whole subject of the struggle! and i very much like talking about it all and trying to define it. and as well becasue it changes continually. metal is not my primary means of expresion, i am still new to it, and like i said i get dazzled by the glare of everyone elses apparent technical skill, and this gets in my way. :) my ego wants to be good at that stuff, but i am finding that mindset is a total dampener on expression. for me, this stuff is not Really the point, its not the end story and i have to keep reminding myself along the way that technical skills in and of themself will not make me happy... the thing with any functionable item i have tried to make, it DOES require planning and thought and preconcieved design, which is great and the thought of working these things out is appealing on some level, But it does not go hand in hand with the approach i like to use in other areas, of almost unconscious directly felt work, where i make desicions in the moment based on many things but not necasarily Design or Thought out reasons. this is why i love to think about the golden ratio and all that stuff, but i would not want to conciosuly PUT IT IN something, rather, be pleased to find thopse rythms afterwards if you see what i mean. i spent a little time in the workshop the other day (my time is very disjointed - v frustrating so its hard to get a train of thought and stay with it for constant interruption :) ) and made a decision to ignore what Should be done and in what order ( or what i percieve those things to be! - i am my own worst enemy and a tragic over thinker..) ) and to just use the same approach as i have been in my other artistic persuits. this sounds very simple and a no brainer, but life is not like that is it? what is obvious maybe to some of you lot has not been obvious to me. so, i made some shapes and marks, making vague desisions as i went, let things split and stretch, and it felt very good. when i Next get in there, i will certainly persue more of that. i need to treat this subject like i would any other, thats all!! having said that - to get the confidence and power that alan describes, and achieves, this process has to be refined and a lot of time spent. the sculptors video was very good - i like his style, and his energy. what i want to get away from somewhat though, is the planning aspect... and its problematic in this medium - like i said about your airelion ( scuse the spelling ) i was amazed you got so much movement and spontineity into something that must have been an engineering/safety nightmare. these are the things that would slay mere mortals ;)

alan its such food for thought - i have been thinking just now whilst washing up as to what it is that prevents me to date being truly expressive in this medium, and it is partly to do with the weight of tradition and the massive Virtue i give that as opposed to my Art background which is harder, in my circles, to justify,,, maybe my puritanical up bringing :) (im sure it is..) i do not find this anywhere near so difficult in other mediums, and michael what your saying about resonance and vibration is absolutely true in ANY creative sphere - and IS evident in your work. it is Not evident in my metal work, but occasionally is in a tantalisingly small way in my drawings or sculptures. the area that interests me now is trying to understand the metal more, and being able to get access to "myself "within it, ( resonance from yourself to the material - the best sound waves really) although even as i say it the monkey on my back says this is Selfish Artist talk :) but its all we really have to offer the world in terms of what we create - the Personal, and how we think and feel ourselves, how we experience things. i read a quote recently about an artists job being a "witness to being alive" and that is a place i want to inhibit more fully ! it is of course another question as to wether you want to approach this thing as an expressive practise free from limitiations and pre concieved ideas, or a highly skilled craftsman built upon years of tradition and accepted form... the reason i even find myself in this area rather than just in my studio is the massive pull of tradition ( along with the actual material and the general 3D excitement :) ) and my geniuine childlike awe for the sheer skill of what has gone before, and the unbeliveable beauty of what has gone before.. there is a middle ground, and i am determined to find it! it is almost impossible for me to formulate clear thoughts on here ( or anywhere) becasue it is the summer holidays and all of my children are talking to me about different subjects as i type, to do with a game of tennis i have foolishly promised ( i want to think about marks on metal....) and where are we going to get balls, where one of them is going to find the next part for a computor he is building, and an amazing thing one of them has seen where you tape spray paint to the botom of your skateboard and map your path in a huge cast concrete bowl.... so you'll excuse the slight lack of focus, but this is a subject i am Very interested in, maybe i will come back tonight - i want to talk more with you all about the whole plagersim dynamic - ric it is something we all struggle with i think, but in this work as well as in music, something else i dabble in, this paranoia of ours is a handicap and can only serve to make us self conscious when we are at work : ( a Bad thing :)!!!

alan just quickly read this with my morning cuppa - i think i could have put that Should bit differently! i was Most Certainly not refering to dangers piece, which i personally thought was marvellous - and have written as such in his post!! i was more referring to a non specific element, that we are thinking about for the sake of the conversation, and i was suggesting the taper that starts as a fibannacci one, in my oppinion, in the more traditional setting, where traditional style was being adopted is better finished as one. having said that, i contradict myself, as i had not consciosly noticed the fact that parts of michaels did not do this - and i had accepted the work visually entirely and really enjoyed it ... :) i hear what your saying about no Should, but if someone is attempting a traitional looking piece, they run the risk of it jarring if they DONT follow some 'rules" ...? i dont think this is how we should all work, i cant work like this even if i wanted to because i dont have the skill to execute it. and i like to follow my heart a little more. but at the end of the day your heart has unavoidable taken influence at the hands of the traditional, for good or for bad... i really should not just waffle on before ive woken properly ;) i will re read the rest now i have put any insult to dangers fabulous work out of the question!@!!

hi beca am wondering why not a swan? ...:)

female smith i totally relate to what your saying - and i think in GENERAL women have not been taught in the same way as men in school, certainly in this country, and are far more likely to use a more instinctive "artistic" approach, either becasue we lack the maths /engineering teaching (having spent a fair bit of time cooking and sewing at school rather than at the tech drawing board or the lathes...) Or are given more confidence in the instinctive from an early age in our culture?? (dont want to start a fight - its only my personal experience, and that of female artists around me..) when i made the gate recently with the peony on it the spirals on the bottom half were by far the hardest bit for me, not becasue i dont know what looks right, i absolutely DO, BUT i dont have the skills yet to produce what i want. i ended up in an horrid compromise of using what i could make, and making the best of it. i knew i wanted a fibonaci curling shape like a snail shell, but to make two the same, that fitted the gap i already made, that joined in the middle in the right place, at the right height, and started at the same point as each other..... was very challenging to my amateur skill levels... i find i rely UTTERLy on my reasonable eye and instinct, not to make a fabulous job of it (Yet.. ; ) but to rescue a situation visually from total disaster.... im convinced we dont need to measure this stuff, just get our eyes in, if that is the way we like to do it. i draw continually, all sorts of things, and i think this helps for this part of what we are doing. what your talking about alan, about creative freedom is very much what ruskin talks about i think, with his gothic stone masons, and giving them the freedom to go their own way and create something unique to each man, not to endlesly follow tradition, or a set of tight rules. some talk in the blacksmithing world is entirely based around reproducing set pieces, which whilst it is an admirable way to hone motor skills at the anvil, is personally something i find very stifling and not at all apealing as an end practise... ideally we need to have enough basic skills and some kind of understanding of the material, plus a good eye, to be able to carry out personal ideas of design and art to a level that works. maths is one way of doing it - not my way as it happens. it is only suitable for some - counterproductive for others!

francis that was very entertaining viewing! what a nice chap - thanks for that :) im not THAT clear how i would use these calipers to design a certain spiral - or have i missed the point? i understand how you could define the other side of a rectangle if you already have one length, but can i use these with fibonnacci curves? or not....? please excuse my appalling grasp of maths....

great photos of the work rory - its looking fantastic :) looks so robust...

its very heartening to hear you talk about the visual weight alan, and i absolutley agree that the taper of the piece should also be in the spirals spaceing. and so your point with michaels piece was that he was mixing the two styles of spiral? the fibbonnacci (scuse spelling - not my strongest skill) type, and the clock spring type? i like your clear definitions of tapers for us - the despcription of the irregular one made me wince, i hate that..... : ( and also the concave makes me nervous... i have yet to fully appreciate and learn these arts!!! thinknig about vertically placed elements tapering towards the top, instinct says that the negative space left beside the narrow tops should (for best visual effect) be less, OR more than the size of the mass at the bottom end, but not the same? or maybe thats just what my mood dictates this morning :) (reminding me of 60's op art illusion drawings... in my minds eye!) who knows.. maybe i should have drawn that before i commented.... i will go and do it now.... :) this is a useful thing to focus on for myself... :) ps alan - i LOVE LOVE that thing on your id photo or whatever it is we call it - what IS it? i love it! it is visually totally arresting! :)it looks perfect, if we are talking about visual weight and such, and the energetic kind of weight and direction of it ( there will be a better word i realise that - you will know it and inform me i hope! ) it looks extremely satisfying, is a perfect exploitation of the material - showing many of the reasons we all love the stuff... or like a piece of concise poetry for Matter. why exactly is that? the reasons things are so successful visually interest me very much.. is that to much for half ten in the morning...? i do appologise..;)

was about to say the same - beautifully worked and finished :) lovely

YAY!! excited :)