Standing on the shoulders of giants

Who and What Influences your work.

The July theme for the Etsymetal Team Blog Carnival* is "influences on your work, with examples". 

It is said in art, that we are all standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. This is certainly true, for there is virtually no one that can claim to have not been influenced by someone or something in the progression of their art.  The popular notion is that an artist sees another’s work and then goes off and tries to emulate it. This is rarely the case. Influences are much more oblique and subtle than that. Influences come from many directions and sources over a lifetime. Some influences are immediate and direct like a punch in the nose. Something stops you dead in your tracks, and you know it will haunt you till you find a way to express it in your art somehow. Other influences take years to develop, appreciate and find a voice for. These can be an experience from childhood or a philosophical point of view. 

Most artists are sensitive to other art forms and their environment and are often influenced by them. We see influences in our own work of our musical tastes and political views. These influences don’t necessarily take center stage, but they are there nonetheless, and tell part of the story of “why did you do that”.  In that sense, influences are an elaborate “connect the dots” trail of thought and emotions that result in a particular artistic expression.  

Here are some of the dots that connect our work:

Martini Glass 

Stainless steel, brass, color on metal.
 

Influences: Old botanical manuscripts and Caravagio. 

Corliss was apprenticed as a floral designer at a very early age. This has had a deep life-long influence in her artistic voice. John virtually grew up in an art museum and thus had extensive contact with classical painting and sculpture from an early age. Classicism has been a recurring thematic device in 2Roses work whether expressed literally or abstractly.

A botanical manuscript circa 1500 by Pietro Andrea Mattioli

Bachus by Carravagio.  Side Note: John was expelled from the high school art club over a dispute about Carravagio. Fuck you Shell Fishburne, Carravagio was an influence and still is. There, we feel better now.

Galaxy Bracelet

Circuit board, sterling silver

Influences: The Jestsons animated tv show.  Like most children of our generation, we spent countless hour watching, and being influenced by television.  What started out as a simplistic situational comedy view of the future soon blossomed into a heavy interest in futurism and science fiction. Frank Frazetta made our eyes water with his virtuoso painterly technique, but Syd Mead really blew our minds. This was industrial design done with a narrative.

Corliss was apprenticed as a floral designer at a very early age. This has had a deep life-long influence in her artistic voice. John virtually grew up in an art museum and thus had extensive contact with classical painting and sculpture from an early age. Classicism has been a recurring thematic device in 2Roses work whether expressed literally or abstractly.

The Jetsons

Syd Mead

 

Vaquero Concho Earrings

Nickel, sterling silver

Influences: Armor and early Western Tack. 

We were introduced to engraving early on through interaction with antique edged weapons and armor. This has manifested itself by getting sidetracked into knife making, but in recent years we've finally come back to focusing on engraving.

California Style vaquero tack

Spurs with Spanish style rowls

 

 Hurt Yourself Earrings

Sterling Silver

Influences: Robert Williams iconoclastic style and artistic "piss on your shoes" attitude puts him in the vanguard of artists you love or hate. There seems to be no middle ground, and Robert would have it no other way. We happen to love him.  We also love New Zealand art forms, Moko in particular.

Robert Williams, Empire hanging by a stretch

Maori Moko

Ghost of the Red Fort
Sterling Silver, bone
Influences: Islamic and Indian art. The rich classical tradition of Eastern pattern and textural decoration has been a great influence on our art. We almost always go back to ultra-conservative forms when we get in these moods.

a Mughal palace

The Alhambra

Pompei
Ancient coins, repousse, micromosiaic, bone, neoprene
Influences: Ramona Solzberg, Ron Ho, Roman Mosaics
The work of Ramona Solzberg and Ron Ho has had great influence on the philosophy and form of our work. This has played out with the use of found objects seen in other examples on this page. The convergence of found objects (electrical components) with exposure to Roman mosaics gave birth to the technique of micromosiaics that we have developed.

Necklace by Ron Ho

Roman Mosaic

 Artifact of Faith
 Sterling silver, brass, rutile, Italian liturgical print
Influences: We were both raised in the Catholic religion and attended parochial school. This exposed us to lots and lots of religious-based art, the Catholic church being one of the great historical patrons of the arts. We did our stint at vatican-bashing with our art in our youth, but we've come around to appreciating the more ornate forms of Catholic religious objects. In particular, Spanish influenced cathedrals and Russian icons

Valencia Cathedral, Guanajuato, Mexico

Russian Icon

 Be sure to check our EtsyMetal friends to learn more about how artists are influenced and what plays out in their art.

* Blog Carnival is a team project of EtsyMetal. Each month, volunteer members of the group all write on the same topic. Topics are usually related to the artistic/creative lifestyle or metalsmithing in particular. The purpose is to give readers a sampling of the the diversity of thought that artists hold on common subjects.

Creative Mess

This month’s Blog Carnival theme is “Studio Tour”.

We’re all voyeurs on some level. For artists, peeking into each other’s work space is endless fun. What tools do you have? How are they set up? What level of chaos do you work in? And of course, the supremo question…whatcha workin’ on right now?

2Roses studio space encompasses about 2500 sq feet divided into three large rooms. There are also a number of out buildings for storage as well as rock cutting and rock storage external to the building.

The studio is in a constant state of flux, and we work in an atmosphere of a slow roiling controlled chaos. Equipment is moved and rearranged constantly as we add or upgrade items, or attempt better work flow.  We always have 30 or more projects going at any time. These will invariably encompass a cornucopia of materials and techniques, and will range from production line to commissions to exhibition work.

Storage is an ongoing battle. We accumulate stuff, every imaginable kind of stuff. We have learned to stop asking each other “what in hell are you going to do with THAT!?” We know that someday we will need a mummified opossum paw to finish a piece.  The real question will be, where in hell did we put them.

So without further ado, welcome to our studio. Feel free to look around, and send us an email if you spot a opossum paw in any of the photos. We’re also still looking for a Burmese ruby we dropped on the floor in 1994 too. 

Fabrication room

Fabrication room

Fabrication bench

Fabrication bench

Faceting bench

One of big rock saws, lapidary

Small kiln and ovens, enamel & poly clay

Lapidary bench

Machine room

Machine room

Machine room

Machine room

Machine room

Resin/Casting

Rock Storage, just a partial of 3+ tons of material

Storage

Storage

Storage

Woodworking room

Woodworking room

Woodworking room

Woodworking room

Naked Sketch Book

This month's Blog Carnival** asks the question, "What's in your sketchbook?"

There is nothing we possess that is more personal than our sketchbooks. We carry them wherever we go and are never without one. They are far more than something to draw in. Our sketchbooks are really running diaries of our thoughts, moods, and observations in pictures and words. They are in fact an open window into how our brains work, page by page. 

Sometimes the pages are methodical construction plans and manufacturing details. Other pages are spontaneous brain-farts or random tangents set in motion by…anything.  We often write down experiences as they are happening, or stop mid-step to sketch something that catches our eye or sparks an idea. 

Because these books travel around with us on a daily basis, the context in which any page is created may be at a restaurant, the dentist’s office, the Yuma Symposium, driving to work or flying to Germany. 

We have never opened our sketchbooks to anyone before, so you are the first. The following pages are random selections from 1990-2011.  Welcome to our brains.  Please watch your step.

Kinetic objects hold an ongoing fascination for us, as we are easily amused.  We have hundreds of pages of designs for mechanically moving jewelry.  We’ve actually built a fair number of pieces over the years. They always sell fast, so apparently lots of people are easily amused.

We go off in lots of directions and will design purses, accessories, tools, belts, vases, boxes, knives buttons, furniture, and in this case, eyeglasses, as the mood strikes.

Sometimes you just have to sit down and plan out or document how something is going to be made. We’ve got lots and lots of pages like this one.  Its not sexy, but stuff like is invaluable when you go to make the second iteration of a piece.

These pages probably represent the popular notion of what is in an artist’s sketchbook.  We’re working through some surface decoration variations for a specific form.  The item held in the book with blue tape is a tracing from the die used to cut the hydraulically formed shape. This ensures that the designs are as accurate as possible.

This page was done at the Yuma Symposium. The text on the right is a series of quick notes on the events of one afternoon in Yuma. Eventually this will be fleshed out into a short but very weird (and true) story.

These pages show the development of a piece titled “Good bird, Bad bird, which is about anthropomorphism. The concept was pretty crystallized for us, so most of the development focused on the physical body language of the birds.  We did quite a few variations of birds, but felt that the more taciturn we made them the funnier they were. It lent a “business as usual” feel to an image that is intrinsically ridiculous. 

That concludes the tour of our brains. Please visit the gift shop on your way out, and be sure to come back for next month’s Blog Carnival topic “Have you ever made a sex tape in your studio?”

**Blog Carnival is a project of the Etsymetal Team. Each month, members of Etsymetal all blog about a particular subject, thus providing different perspectives on the same subject.

Tool Lust

What is the tool you covet the most? 

Why? What would you do with it if you got it? 

cov·et : To wish for longingly.

This month’s EtsyMetal Blog Carnival** question reminds us of the old joke about the dog chasing after a car. The punch line being, what would he do with it if he caught it?

We’re like that with tools.  You see, like most of our metalworking friends, we are unabashed tool junkies. So, the tool we covet the most is the one (any one) we don’t have. Who knows what we would do with it once we got it (whatever “it” is). Who cares!

This is really all about tool lust. And don’t pretend you don’t know what we’re talking about. It doesn’t matter what you’re into, you’ve experienced tool lust at some point. Example: We were on one of our exploratory trips into the bowels of Los Angeles some weeks back. There are some truly amazing nooks and crannies to be found in any large city. In little Tokyo we stumbled into a Japanese specialty hardware store.  Is Japanese hardware so different from hardware anywhere else? Apparently so!

Once inside the door of the little shop, we were courteously greeted by the owner. So un-Home Depot like. Our gaze became quickly distracted by floor to ceiling shelves overloaded and bristling with tools of unimaginable functions.  This was way better than a trip to Disneyland, and clearly had the potential to be far more expensive.

We beckoned to the store owner. We were going to need an experienced guide on this safari.  For the next hour and a half we grilled this patient little man on the detailed operation and purpose of almost the entire contents of his store. Some tools were so specialized and esoteric that their purpose couldn’t be communicated by the shop keeper’s limited English and Kafkaesque pantomime. No matter, it seemed we were destined to get at least one of everything.

The shop keeper led us into the dark and cluttered rear of the store. With a quiet knowing smile he descended behind a counter. When he reappeared he held an object in his outstretched hands, which he offered to us almost reverently. It was a pair of scissors. We gently took the cutting implement from the shop keeper. This was no ordinary pair of scissors.  “For bonsai” said our host, “finest in all Japan”, as he motioned like Edward Scissorhands for effect.  Indeed, they were exquisite in their utilitarian plainness, clearly handmade, and razor sharp.  There was no way we were leaving that store without those scissors.

Which brings us back to the story of the dog chasing the car. We don’t do bonsai, but we have one hell of a good pair of bonsai scissors.

** This series is part of "Blog Carnival" a project of EtsyMetal. Each month, members of EtsyMetal share thier views on a common theme.

EtsyMetal is an International group of metalsmiths who create handmade Jewelry. More information about the group and it's members can be found at http://www.etsymetal.com