New Furniture & Sculpture for Spring

Kyle created a few new pieces this spring that we're pretty excited about. The first is a set of custom benches he calls the Shockoe Benches. There's so much history in these benches! He used reclaimed metal beams and pine trusses from a demolished building in Shockoe Bottom to create these pieces. The metal legs retain the original paint patina, and the original mill marks are evident on the wooden seats. 

The Mosaic Bench is the latest in our custom furniture featuring mosaic inlay. The seats are reclaimed heart pine, each with a strip of colorful glass mosaic inlay. Kyle created an elegant hand-forged base to complement the mosaics. We know we're partial, but we're pretty taken with the way metal, mosaic, & wood came together in this piece.

And last but not least, here's the latest in Kyle's series of hand-forged cat tail garden sculpture with rust patina.

GROWTH group show

This group show has been such a phenomenal experience! We worked with four other artists to create the work for this show, then installed it in a gallery at Crossroads Art Center. Though we didn't design any of the work collaboratively, it all flows together beautifully. The colors, the styling, the mood... right down to patterns and texture.

{Click on any of the images to enlarge.}

We called our show GROWTH in honor of the new spring and the natural themes and materials in much of the group's work. The show features the work of six artists:

GROWTH will be up at Crossroads for two more weeks. All the work in the show is for sale. If you are local to Richmond and haven't had a chance to stop by, you have until May 8. This show is best experienced in person, so stop by if you can! Crossroads is open 10-6 M-Sat and 12-4 on Sundays. If you go, let us know what you think!

Jepson Hall Mosaic

Earlier this year we were commissioned to create a portrait of Jepson Hall, one of the buildings on the beautiful University of Richmond campus, as a retirement gift. 

{Click on any of the images to enlarge.}

The biggest challenge with this piece was working the detail of the building into the relatively small space of the mosaic. In the end, Johannah decided to let the grout serve as the white stone elements. This meant working with three different grout colors altogether, which in turn meant lots of taping off between colors!

In this angled image, you can see that the building was created from flat, unglazed porcelain while the sky in the background and landscape in the foreground were created from shiny glass. Below, the finish piece in the reclaimed walnut frame made by Kyle.