“I think blacksmithing is sometimes seen as something old or backward looking. It’s a handworking process, it requires earplugs, and there’s no app for it.
But there is a sensitivity to it, and a versatility to the process of forging that’s unavailable any other way. It allows me to be responsive to architecture and space in all my work, and to create any physical shape in metal.
In a world of mass manufacturing, forged metal objects represent something rarefied and meaningful.” –Mike Rossi
Mike Rossi, Ellipsis in blue, forged and inflated steel, 2013.
Mike Rossi Contemporary Thermodynamic Design In the iron studio
This workshop will use blacksmithing techniques to create meaningful contemporary sculpture and useful objects. We’ll start with introductory exercises and then move into self-directed projects. The workshop will be based in hot forging and forming, including hand- and power-hammer forging of steel and bronze, sheet metal forming, inflation, joinery, and simple toolmaking. We’ll also cover finishing techniques, including bringing color to surface. Throughout, we’ll consider the underlying content of our work and investigate the place of blacksmithing in contemporary life. We’ll work hard, have fun, and create many new objects. All levels.*
To find out more and register for this workshop click here. Spring scholarship deadline is November 29. Please note: applications need to be at Penland by this date to be considered for scholarship. Overnight service may not deliver to Penland’s campus on time, please plan accordingly.
*Mike Rossi notes that the course of his eight-week workshop will be subject to change based on the interest of his students. Basic toolmaking will be covered, but Rossi adds this disclaimer:
“we won’t be making any swords during this class!”
Mike Rossi has taught at Penland, Ox-Bow and Kalamazoo College. His work has been exhibited at Torpedo Factory (VA),the National Ornamental Metals Museum (TN), and Houston Center for Contemporary Art (TX), among others. He was participant in FERRO 2005 (Germany). He tries to read one book a week, and has been influenced by the writings of Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, Jorge Borges, and Dave Hickey–and, more recently, Samuel Delaney and Mervyn Peake. Over the last two years, he’s been blown away by the animated films of Hayao Miyazaki. Oh yes, and his big three artists right now are Olafur Eliasson, Martin Puryear, and Giorgio de Chirico.
0 to 60: The Experience of Time through Contemporary Art will open on November 21 at Pratt Manhattan Gallery in New York City. The exhibition, co-organized by the North Carolina Museum of Art and Penland School of Crafts, includes works that explore time as a theme–real time, virtual time, historical time, recorded time, manipulated time, or the passage of time.
This version of the exhibition (which was on-view at the NCMA in the spring and summer of 2013) includes work by Penland instructors Dan Bailey, Jana Brevick, David Chatt, Sonya Clark, Alison Collins and Dan Estabrook.
The exhibition opens with a reception on Thursday, November 21, 6-8 pm, at Pratt Manhattan Gallery, 144 West 14th Street. The exhibition runs through January 25, 2014.
Artists included in 0 to 60 at Pratt include:
Caetano de Almeida Dan Bailey Walead Beshty Jana Brevick Paul Chan David Chatt Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao Sonya Clark Alison Collins Dan Estabrook Felix Gonzalez-Torres Lisa Hoke Tehching Hsieh Richard Hughes Rafeal Lozano-Hemmer Peter Matthews David Shapiro
Metalsmith, jeweler, and former Penland core fellow Sarah Loertscher will return to Penland this spring to teach a workshop in the metals studio. Elaine Bleakney corresponded with her about the workshop, her work, and its deep ties to landscape.
I think a lot about the way poems build through repetition, and how when a poet repeats a phrase, the phrase invokes the possibility of a form emerging for the poem at large. Do you have similar feelings about the creation of visual forms in your work?
Yes. Since being a core fellow at Penland, the idea of a starting place (in my case, usually a repeating shape) has been at the heart of my making experience.
It started as a coping mechanism while I was a student Penland–we were exposed to so many new instructors and techniques in such a short time, and I wanted to jump into making, not figuring out what to make. At the time, I would use the triangle and the hexagon–so no matter what class I was in, I would just start making one of those shapes out of metal, clay, paper, glass. It got me working.
It’s still the same experience today–I love the repetition of forms, and some days I just want to build the same building blocks over and over again, and other times I want to build with them. The building part is really organic–the pieces dictate how they want to grow. The hardest part is knowing when I’m done building and when I need to finish it. It’s somehow collaborative–like I help bring a piece into the world, not that I create it.
Image courtesy of Sarah Loertscher.
Using a shape–and getting people working, and building, through repetition–will be the focus of the workshop. We are working on getting out from obsessing over one precious piece. This really stunts learning, because after a point you begin to be scared of taking chances and “ruining” what you started.
I want the workshop to be a really active one, where people are moving through processes and learning through experience. We’ll dive into deeper projects later in the workshop, but the core of the class is going to be experiencing different processes and understanding what you love (or dislike) about each technique.
Sarah Loertscher Multiples: Fabrication Through Repetition In the metals studio
This workshop will focus on fabrication using repetition to build familiarity with materials and techniques. We’ll cover the basics—piercing, filing, riveting, cold connections, soldering—and advanced techniques like hollow construction (sheet and wire), inlay (solder, resin, wood, and soft stone), enameling, and steel fabrication. This workshop is perfect for beginners as well as experienced students interested in creating a production line or new body of work. The emphasis will be on honing skills and creating meaningful, well-designed jewelry and objects. All levels.
To find out more and register for this workshop click here. Spring scholarship deadline is November 29.
Please note: applications need to be at Penland by this date to be considered for scholarship. Overnight service may not deliver to Penland’s campus on time, please plan accordingly.
Image courtesy of Sarah Loertscher.
In your artist statement you talk about the expansive Midwestern landscape you grew up in as providing a backdrop for forms to impress you. Do you miss this, living and working in an urban environment, and do you find forms in the urban landscape that inspire you now?
You know, I do miss it. The urban environment feeds me in different ways, mainly through interaction and opportunity. The density of Seattle brings together the opportunity of collaboration and exposure, among other things. For example, this last weekend we pulled off a photo shoot where we had professional make up artists, stylists, models, and a photographer, and mostly from our circle of friends and acquaintances. That would be hard to pull off last minute in a rural setting. Seattle has also helped me expand my studio through interested students and apprentices, and given me teaching opportunities and press. The social landscape is beautiful, and rich in designers, makers, and people who appreciate those things. The surrounding physical landscape is also breathtakingly beautiful, but is usually just seen from afar–a beautiful backdrop of mountains and water.
Sarah Loertscher teaches and works out of her West Seattle studio. She has taught at Pratt Fine Art Center in Washington. A former Penland core fellow and American Craft Council AltCraft artist, her exhibitions include Velvet daVinci (CA) and Sienna Gallery (MA). Her runway collaboration with Angel Sanchez appeared at New York Fashion Week 2013 and a collaboration with Mila Hermanovski at Los Angeles Fashion Week 2012. She might be watching this right now:
