...a little bit more

This is the underside after patination and with the silver "water" base in place. I finished the silver with a very fine "ishi-arashi" texture because the highly polished finish just looked cheap and harsh. It felt too "noisy" for the feeling I've been pushing towards.

You can see the cut-outs for the wings ( they are not yet in place in this shot ), behind the leaves. When in place they add yet another little surprise, glowing in the dark as they do. Because I thinned the mother of pearl quite a lot to allow light to shine through from behind, it also means that the veins are visible when seen from behind. The shadows cast by the leaves also play across the back of the wings when seen from the front, giving the impression that the dragonfly is flying in their shadow. It's all turned out to be quite kinetic!

A bit of piercing work

It's been a while since I provided any idea of what I was up to with my pet rock project so here's a peek. The underside of the rock was to be left open to allow light to shine through the mother of pearl wings when the piece was picked up. I experimented with a couple of options and finally settled on this "woven" effect being created by overlapping leaves. I need to be sure that the whole space was reasonably evenly covered but at the same time to suggest a random and natural arrangement...I think it worked out OK.

The material is a variety of brass which allowed me to develop a very pleasing and warm ochre colour. The chiselled texture on the leaves, a combination of kata-kiri and maru-bori ( gouge work ) allowed me to actually use two different tones of colour, this really added to the painterly effect I was after. The other thing that I did to heighten that feel was to model the flowers by only very roughly working them with a simple rounded punch. They were then gilded.

The first image shows my jewellers bench and the 3 different piercing saws I use. The biggest one is necessary for those cuts that simply can't be reached on larger than usual pieces, like some of the work on this back plate. The middle one is my standard saw and one I've been using for nearly 30 years...it's my old faithful and feels like part of my hand. They just don't make them like this any more. The smallest one there is actually an antique German one. A lovely birthday present from my mate in Berlin, Karl Wunderlich. It's nearly 200 years old but it very precise and handles very well. It's especially good for very delicate work.

If you have a fast internet connection and you'd like to see these images in higher resolution, and much bigger, you can simply click on them.

It's been a little while...

Despite the "no show" here on my blog, I've not been entirely idle. I've been plodding away on a number of related projects and with a bit of luck and a tail wind I hope to finish the year with a bit of a flourish.

This is a shot of the dragonfly I took a little while ago, do you like the "arty" soft focus around the edges? I'm working on the underside and base of the piece now...and will probably "unveil" the finished piece in a couple of weeks...the iron patina is developing slowly, like a fine wine ;-)

Just so you know, the body of the dragonfly is not really in it's fished state in the image nor are the wings really. I've got a few more tricks to apply.

...and on a completely different note, pun intended, my lovely wife bought a CD yesterday that I've been playing to death. Missy Higgins; On a Clear Night. I absolutely love her voice...you might too. Here's a link to her beautiful song "Where I stood"

Namaste, Ford

some more quotes by Odilon Redon

Just for Doug, here are a few more quotes, from Monsieur Redon, that I particularly like.

"It is precisely from the regret left by the imperfect work that the next one can be born."
I think we all feel this one to be very true.

"What distinguishes the artist from the dilettante? Only the pain the artist feels. The dilettante looks only for pleasure in art."
This is, I think, the reason it is so difficult, perhaps even impossible, for these two to communicate.

"The artist yields often to the stimuli of materials that will transmit his spirit." I really adore this sentiment.

and this one, I'm particularly drawn to...by it's very suggestiveness.

"My drawings inspire and are not to be defined. They determine nothing. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous world of the undetermined. They are a kind of metaphor."

Genius!

I could kick myself...I just stumbled on this site.

I had this idea some time ago, when a young chap was amazing us all with fantastically complicated origami creatures. I thought no-one would take me seriously....like they do anyway ;-) ( I really do need smilies on this blog...I ought to look into that )

Anyway, it's hilarious and I fully expect this chap to become a celebrity just like that American artist who produces hand drawn money, J. S. G. Boggs

Mr Boggs makes a very important comment about the value of money and I think this "genius" makes a similar point about art. ;-)

Namaste.

Odilon Redon

This is a painting by the French artist Odilon Redon. 1840 ~ 1916. It's titled " Silence"
He seems to have been quite a productive sort of man and appears to generally have been content to stick to his own artistic concerns with almost no reference to developments in the greater art world.

I'm feeling a bit lazy this morning so rather than try and sum his work up here's an excerpt from "Symbolism" , by Michael Gibson.

"Standing outside trends and movements, Odilon Redon, a native of Bordeaux, produced a rich and enigmatic corpus: 'Like music', he declared, 'my drawings transport us to the ambiguous world of the indeterminate.' In contrast with Goya's monsters and Kubin's nightmare visions, his work is imbued with a melancholy passivity. While origins of this disposition must be sought in the artist's experience, the overall effect is entirely consistent with the moods of Symbolism ... : nocturnal, autumnal, and lunar rather than solar. During the early part of Redon's career, the nocturnal did indeed predominate. Only later did he admit the light of day. His mature production began around 1875 when Redon entered the shadowy world of charcoal and the lithographer's stone. This period yielded sequences such as [Guardian Spirit of the Waters (1878)] and [Cactus Man (1881)]. Redon made it clear that they had been inspired by his dreams, and they inspire in the spectator a conviction like that of dreams.

"It was only in the 1890s that he began to use the luminous, musical tones of pastel and oils. These became the dominant media of the last fifteen years of his life. Redon's art was always commanded by his dreams, but the thematic content of his work over his last twenty years is more densely mythical, brimming with new-found hope and light which rose quite unexpectedly out of the depths of the artist's personality. This is particularly apparent in the various canvasses depicting the chariot of Apollo, the god of the sun."

I've also been drawn to many of the ideas he writes about in his diaries to himself. This one is a current favourite.

"Materials have their own secrets to reveal, they have their own genius. It is through them that the oracle speaks"

take a moment and listen...

...I dig it, dig it , dig it...

this

and Pascal Obispo...this track from the first album I bought of his...; here you go

and one of my favourite contemporary Chanson singers Patricia Kaas

...but as a final standard setter; Marie Carmen singing the same song...

and she does it so sexily...

while we're listening to all this French music I might as well slip in one of my favourite bits of opera. It's, uncharacteristically, not in Italian, or German!....but in French. This is the famous male duet from Bizet's "the Pearl Fishers"

It expresses the devotion of 2 friends, a younger man and his older mentor, to one another. In the song we learn that they are both in love with the same woman but to preserve their friendship they both pledge to abandon the lady. Needless to say, the younger man cannot resist the urging of his heart and the story evolves toward it's inevitable end. Here, however, ideals and emotion are pure.

The actual story of this particular recording, the gold standard in terms of this song, is very interesting too.

I suppose I ought to get back up to date now, so here's something that makes me feel very proud to be English, the way this man was seen purely for what he expressed....not what he looked like. Absolutely brilliant; here's the link.

Enjoy, and Namaste.

Lots more words ...and some more pictures too.

I've just posted an essay, which provides a bit of an overview of Traditional Japanese metalwork, over on the Iron Brush forum. Here's the link.

...and in case you missed it, I also posted a gallery of most of the tsuba I've made over the last 20 or more years. Here's the link to that collection.

Namaste, Ford

Can tsuba really be art?

I’m posting this response to a little discussion that’s been rumbling on, on the iron brush forum. I’m putting it here because I don’t want my opinion to be seen as “official policy” there just because I started the thing. I must admit I really do find that sort of discussion, about functionality , to be very much out of place on that forum. The Bladesmiths forum, Sword Forum International and E-budo are all far more appropriate places for such ponderings.

The only aspect of functionality that is relevant to art is what it brings to our interaction with it. I say interaction because it is a process of exploration. Of the work, and of oneself. This is where the fun lies, this process of being changed by what we study, and then, again, seeing what we're learned in a different light...and so the cycle repeats.

Some art is capable of keeping this process of re-evaluation going far longer than others...the greatest art...perhaps, never stops, as long as we don't.

To return to my babies, tsuba, there are in fact a number of practical considerations I am always working from. The plates ability to withstand a sword strike is absolutely not one of them however. I seriously doubt it ever was.

A very common guard at the time when warfare was rife in old Japan, was merely lacquered leather. Hardly bullet proof! ;)
There was also a fashion for guard-less swords. When we do see guards on older, utilitarian, swords they are often very thin, 3 or even 2mm thick. Clearly not too much concern with anything more than the bare minimum.

For me, the "practical" considerations have to do with the feel of the guard against my hand when on the hilt. I don't want a cheese grater rubbing away at my flesh The size and shape is very relevant too, I don't want it impeding my grasp of the hilt when I draw the sword.

The most easily recognised, visual, consideration is the decoration and it's placement in relation to how the sword is worn. This "display" is probably the most significant aspect of a tsuba's function. It signals the taste and sensibilities of the wearer, whether hardened warrior, officious bureaucrat or ostentatious merchant. Once these aspects are fully understood, and become unconscious, the real work of trying to sculpt your art begins.

This sort of work is not quite sculpture and not yet painting, we have far too many restrictions in that regard, but, we can have the best of both worlds...if we learn the medium well. This is what I'm engaged in, it's what excites me.

I won't argue that there are not a lot of "show off", and" parade" type tsuba in existence but just because there are millions of "chocolate box " style painters out there too doesn't mean that a painter can't still achieve something meaningful using that particular art form. So too, there have been many, truly great, artists in the miniature art form of tsuba. The language they developed is still not well known, beyond a few, very refined, connoisseurs.

As for defending myself, what is there to defend? Despite appearances, I am not trying single-handedly to preserve a tradition , I merely offer my experience and what little I do know, that works. I have tried to present my rationale in these matters too. There is not much more I can do. Traditions only survive, in a vital way, if the ground out of which they have grown is well assimilated. Only then can we say that we are working as part of a particular continuum. Anything less is just clip-art.

And by "we", I mean anyone who actually wants to try and make that journey into Classical Japanese metalwork. Not every one is that bothered to, they may have equally valid artistic concerns that lead them elsewhere.


I must confess to a little discomfort though, at the superficial borrowing of the obvious, and most easily applied, aspects of the tradition I value so much. It is a very sophisticated language that the master metal artists of the past have left us, a language I am trying to interpret , as accurately as I am able, so that I can gain something more than merely fashionable gimmicks.

To paraphrase the 18th century Chinese writer, Shen Tsung-ch'ien ( The Art of Painting, 1781 )

Do not slavishly copy the masters of the past, seek instead that which they sought.

Namaste, and keep tappin’

What matters...

I just watched this on youtube, it started my day off pretty well....perhaps it'll do the same for you.

Here's the link

p.s, it's not naughty at all ;-)

oops!...wrong link...that one is actually a bit naughty ( in a funny way )....but I know you'll definitely want to watch it now ;-) so I'll leave it there.

The one I meant to link to is this
It's possibly more wholesome. This was the winning entry to a competition organised by the Vancouver Film School. You can see the other 2 winners by following the links from their home page.

Enjoy.