[TheForge] Untilitarian iron as art

Mon Mar 1 07:10:06 2004

        Nice piece of iron Andy.  I brought back a piece similar from
England when I went.  My wife and I were walking on the beach head towards
the Mediteranean and there was this beautiful piece of wrought iron sticking
out of an old battered ruins of a storm wall.
        I immediately returned to the motel we were staying at to ask all
the old timers working on the place if anyone knew of when the storm wall
was constructed.  The owner of the motel overheard my conversation and took
me into the hall to his office and there were the construction pictures
dated from the 30's of the original storm wall.  Here I had a piece of iron
that had survived 70 years of ocean pounding and knew the whole story behind
it.
        I use it at my demos for showing the grain in the metal as your
piece does also.

        People always ask - "what is wrought iron?" so you can hold up a
piece like that and go "this is".  Then they are really confused until you
explain the material as compared to the definition that means "worked".  But
it is a great way to get a good conversation going with a person, who
sometimes turns into a customer when they continue to ask more questions.

        So this same iron can be considered art, which I agree with you
totally on, and it can also be a wonderful definition of the material for
educational purposes.

Ralph

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Vida" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, February 29, 2004 8:32 PM
Subject: [TheForge] Untilitarian iron as art


> Just thought I'd share an image with you that shows the beauty of
> simple, common untilitarian items when executed with great skill
> in craft.
>
> This is a wrought iron eye that I pulled out of the Columbia river
> a couple of days ago.  It was heavily encrusted and I just put it
> through a light etch to get the oxides and other crud off of it.
>
> This simple piece was the product of a skilled hand and I find great
> beauty in it as art in its own right.
>
> http://netlabs.net/~osan/Photos/WI_Eye.jpg
>
> One of the things that I love about wrought iron is it chronicles the
> hand of the maker through its story telling grain structure.
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