Forged Steel and Mosaic Wall Sculptures

Working as an artist, in any medium or genre, is always a journey and an evolutionary process. When we first started working collaboratively to create art objects, we focused on stand-alone sculptures. Once we had tried our hands at a few of those in varying sizes and styles, we were ready for the next challenge.

It was time to take our collaborative sculptures to the wall.

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Our first work in this series happened to be a commission. The client requested a piece featuring a few of their favorite critters, the monarch butterfly and dragonflies, to fit a very specific alcove in their home

The fun and interesting challenge in designing a fairly realistic piece like this is navigating the line between absolute realism and expressive stylizing. Which details are essential? What can be exaggerated, reduced, or even eliminated to create the desired effect?

The next piece in this series was inspired by a fall walk through a gingko tree-lined neighborhood.

For Kyle this was a return to an earlier subject, an opportunity to bring new skills to the work while adding the dimension of color from Johannah’s mosaic.

For Johannah this piece was a chance to explore the beautiful shifts in color of the beloved gingko leaf, from the greens of spring and summer to the golds of autumn.

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For the last two pieces in this particular run of work, we decided to return to familiar shapes while working a touch smaller and adding some geometric framing to the organic shapes.

Forged Steel Botanicals

From his earliest days as a blacksmith, Kyle has enjoyed forging flowers, leaves, and other botanical structures. It’s a unique and satisfying challenge to transform hard, flat steel into the fluid shapes of plants. Here are a couple recent projects that put those skills to use.

First up is a small tabletop bamboo sculpture. This piece stands about 12” tall and was included in our exhibit as guest artists of the month at Crozet Artisan Depot a few years ago.

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Next is a set of shelf brackets designed around a grapevine and leaf motif. A winery near Vancouver, British Columbia reached out to us about creating these custom brackets for their new tasting room.

You can see other examples of Kyle’s botanical forging in other blog posts, including a double-leaf tree gate, a custom mantle mirror, and an exterior cat tail sculpture.

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Forged Bronze Cross with Lilies

Some our readers may remember Kyle and his team created a double-leaf tree gate for a local church a few years ago. They reached out to us again when they were ready for the next phase of their courtyard redesign. This part of the project included the creation of a decorative bronze cross.

{Click or tap images to enlarge.}

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Forging the lilies was the most intricate part of this project. In the last photo above, you can see some of the process. Kyle starts with a billet of bronze, then forges that out into a sheet. From there he forges the flower itself.

Below you can see photos of the finished cross and lilies. The first two photos are at our old studios in Richmond. The last one shows the piece installed in the church’s courtyard garden.