IsabeauxStudio

My next series of pieces became one of the longest running bodies of work I have created thus far.  It became, if I must admit,  a bit of an obsession.  It started out fairly innocently.  On my way home from work I walked by the Macy's windows on 34th street.  I was looking at the window displays, and saw that they had little displays made out of wire. I remember thinking "I can do that" very clearly.  Two weeks later, a ten pound spool of fourteen gauge wire, a couple pairs of pliers, and I was off. 

My very first wire piece was a chair (shown left), made from one continuous piece of wire.  This was the start of a chair series that spanned over six years.  I immediately fell in love with the look,  and the light airy feel of the piece.  These wire chair sculptures were reminiscent of line drawings.  When hung on the wall,  the shadows cast were beautiful.

 I made quite a few of this type of line drawing piece.  Eventually I progressed,  making the pieces more complicated (see below) adding internal  elements.  After doing several of these, I decided to to take a class in basic metalsmithing.  This was done with a plumber's torch and silver solder.   Learning just enough to be able to join pieces together, I was off, as this new technique offered a whole new dimension and depth to my chair series.   At the same time,  I was gifted a box of scrap metal from a machine shop,  and about ten feet of copper sheeting.  I worked in my little apartment, in a metal tray with a fire brick, along with a bucket of water (to cool the metal) and a fire extinguisher nearby-just in case.  If my landlady knew, she would have had a fit.

This piece at left, titled "Birdsnest," was the first that I did in this format, working with torch, copper, the iron wire, and the solder.  This by far is one of my favorite pieces, I love the texture.  Next I tried more linear, and more clean looks.  This was a harder task, and not one that I perfected.  My metal seams had to be more exact (and being exact is something I don't like to do.)  So often times these cleaner pieces were exercises in patience (another thing that I am not good at) and more often than not, frustration.

 
This piece, titled "Copper Slide" chair was made as above, trying to be more exact and careful in my seams.  The back legs of this chair were made from brass shavings from the machine shop. 

Working with the torch ended up being a lot of experimentation.  I found that I liked to burn things and see the how different metals oxidized and changed color.  My favorite metal ended up being "melted down Diet Coke" cans,  because they took on a cobwebby-parchment look that was delicate looking without being so.  This material is shown in  the piece at left, titled "Mountain."  The melted down Diet Coke can part is the light grey material used for the chair back.

 More and more I started to use recycled and found materials in my pieces.  Mostly because it was easier to build things around that found object, than to build from scratch.  Often times these found materials gave the pieces more depth and texture.  This piece at left evolved from a flea market pocket watch that I took apart, and burned.

 The next evolution in my chair series, came when I went to ask my grandfather for help in making display boxes for my pieces.