Patrick Gracewood’s designs and sculptures have always enchanted me with their beauty.  He captures images from the natural world simply & evocatively.  These images turn up in his bas relief, fine art sculpture and architectural restorations.  Patrick’s versatility as an artist awes me, and I hope that one day some of his designs will “grace” our own ornamental metal work in some way. 

Below I highlight some of Patrick’s work, but you can find lots more at his website Gracewood Studio.  He also writes a wonderful blog, Shadows on Stone, focused on sculpture in all forms of all nature.  Here you can get a real feel for Patrick’s artistic expression — he writes as passionately as he creates visual art. 

Patrick’s studio is located in Portland, Oregon. 

One of my favorite series, The Nature of Water.  These two specific pieces are from the Desert Quartet.

Gracewood has many botanical designs in bas-relief, cast in either bronze or stone.

And who wouldn’t love these cast bronze bears to decorate an outdoor water fountain?

A glimpse of what’s going on in the shop these days — a driveway gate & walk-through gate for clients who run a lavender farm in Woodinville, Washington.   As they prepare to open their farm to the public they need a stout & eye-catching driveway gate to 1) attract, impress & spark curiosity as people drive by along the busy road in front of their property, and 2) keep the public away from their property during non-business hours.

The basic design, without artistic components, looks like this: 

The  panels will be variegated black, achieved via a chemical patina process, and the frames will be finished with a textured rust powder coat.   

The really fun part will be adding the artistic elements – realistic looking lavender bunches that pop out from the black panels.  Stay tuned for how we create these sprigs in bronze.

Walk-through gate frame.

Ornamental Metal Driveway Gate in process (1 of 2)

More later as the work continues.  Come back and see!

Now comes the fun part.  I get to take the laser cut steel panels I showed you in the previous post and begin to form them into their intended shape.  When we built the first Shapely I chose to construct an internal armature to support the 16 gauge shell (shown in the next two pictures) . 

Since Shapely and Shapely Two are intended for outdoor venues I want to ensure they can comfortably handle several people climbing on it as well as in-climate weather conditions. That armature worked well on Shapely but this time I decided to approach the structural requirements differently.  I am making the lower section out of 11 gauge (0.120″) instead of 16 gauge (0.060″)  material for several reasons.

• Shapely Two has  a much more, shall I say, svelte look, making it challenging to fit an armature inside.
• I was so happy with the rigidity of the box construction provided on the first Shapely that I am confident the added thickness will provide plenty of structure
• best of all, it simplifies construction.

There are no flat surfaces on Shapely Two. A characteristic of virtually all of Jennifer’s work.  Each side has varying degrees of curvature.  Some are small enough that I can easily position them using blocks,  clamps or just by pushing.

Others will require more aggressive forming to obtain the proper shape.  Since I have yet to acquire a slip roller, I use this low tech bender for shaping the sheets. It is effective but I have to be careful not to put kinks in the panels.

Before I start bending each panel I need to establish the  line it will curve along.  Once that line has been drawn I add perpendicular lines every few inches.  I align these perpendicular lines to the axis of the tube I am bending the sheet around.  Skipping this step would risk putting unwanted twist in the panel.

Here you can see how two of the panels are fitting up.  The closer I can get them to match without clamps the easier they are to tack together.  Minor gaps can be adjusted out during tacking and final welding.  

Another view of the fit up between the sides. The section closest to the camera will be pushed into position during tacking.

Once I am reasonably happy with the fit it is time to tack the panels together.  To ensure that the base will be ”square” I fixture the panels on the top of the work bench and true everything up.  You can’t have too many clamps. 

Tacks are small welds that temporarily lock the panels together but can be easily broken or cut if necessary.  I place tacks every 6″ to 12″ depending upon the curve.  The tighter the radius the closer the tacks are together. 

I am also paring the tacks so that any shrinkage at one  tack is counterbalanced by a tack on the other side of the panel.  This helps keep things from moving around. In the next picture all 4 sides are tacked together.  Now I will set this piece aside while I tack the mating section together.  Then I’ll come back and fit up the top plate (which must match the mating section) and install the bottom mounting plate.

I’ll cover that in the next post.

Our young son has always been a creative gift giver (a trait he must have gotten from his dad). The idea behind his new line of gifts started last year when he wanted to make something in the shop for his Grandma J. for her 80th birthday. Idea in mind, he sat down and drew a picture of a flower…”because all grandmas love flowers,” he says. From this picture Dave cut out the design in metal with his plasma-cutter and welded on a rod for the post. Back to S. again to add his own flair to the piece with paint.

Now does that look like one happy grandma? Not to mention one proud kid.

As Christmas approached S decided to go for round 2 by making some garden art for his other grandparents. Another flower for Grandma B. and a golfer, of course, for Granddaddy.

As you can see by the golfer, S’s designs are getting more complex. Luckily this is no problem for the guy he farms it out to – Dave always loves a good metal working challenge (plus it takes the pressure off me for a moment with S playing my usual role).

Handmade gifts are always extra special!

Happy Golfer with Bright Flower.

My step-dad — one of the hardest people to buy for. I think S found the secret.

The biggest surprise of all was the behind-the-scenes work D & S were doing to build a special garden art piece for me. My portrait in steel!
I love my long wavy hair and how he captured my less than perfect smile.

I have a goal to create a parent/child workshop where your young one can design his/her own garden art piece. Your child will start in the studio by sketching a design, then you can both witness the metal shop process (there will be other fun activities for distracted kids). From there your child paints his/her masterpiece and then you get to proudly walk away with a heartfelt work of art.

If this workshop sounds intriguing to you, please let me know so I can gauge interest as I plan the details.

We are officially bi-coastal!  We installed this railing for my mother & stepfather over the holidays in Durham, North Carolina.  We’re quite relieved that all the pieces survived the freight trip and that our long-distance measuring proved accurate.  For the story behind the railing, click here.

( Note the nice NC sunshine in December — how I miss that! )

A natural rusted look with high durability & low maintenence is achieved with a rust textured powdercoat finish.

Just in time for the shortest day of the year Dave and I added some warmly exotic lighting to our dining room.  For several months I had been eyeing some Vietnamese lights at my favorite local bistro/retail store Mint Tea.   I knew it was time to buy when Abdul, the co-owner, told me they were having a sale on all their fair trade items.  Merry Christmas to me!

Of course, I really wanted to have them hung before a holiday party we were hosting a week later. Nothing like time pressure to keep you hopping!  We designed a very simple metal bracket and Dave went at it.  Here it is:

Distressed & Blackened Steel Bracket

I love the exotic curves of these lights (which I must mention were wired and hung just in time for our party). 

This was our first foray into lighting and we are ready to do more.  Contact us for your own custom lighting dreams.

Here are photos of a recent project we completed in Northeast Portland. Our client is renovating this old beauty with the help of a PDC grant (Portland Development Commission targets certain neighborhoods for revitalization and offers grants for building improvements). It has been converted to two apartments and an art studio.

Word has it that the house has a colorful past, and some of the neighbors worried its notoriety might be forgotten, and along with it some neighborhood character. Our client decided to honor the so named Henry Williams house by calling it “H.W. on Garfield” (the street name), and placing a prominent sign above the porch eave. Wish I knew the history. Or perhaps not – it might not be as romantically intriguing as I imagine. Speakeasy? Brothel? If I get the juice I’ll share it.

Far view of the project showing signage & tubular stair railing.

Stainless Steel House Sign & Address Plates

Letters & numbers were laser cut.

Powder coated stair railing

Installation

Simple, sleek address plates

We recently installed this stair railing at a client’s home.  To read the story behind the design, go here.  We used a hammer textured powder coat called silver vein.

As we wind down from several architectural projects that have been keeping us hopping, Dave and I are finding the mental space and time to focus on sculpture.  I’ve been busily applying for calls-for-artists (’tis the season) while Dave’s been refining some of my sculpture designs using Rhino 3-d modeling software. 

Lately I’ve been hot on making a Shapely series as an exploration of color and shape.  The first Shapely, created earlier this year, was our foray into pure abstraction.  It was fun playing with simple shapes and bold colors, piecing them together to create an eye-catching form and color combination. 

Here’s the maiden Shapely:

Shapely Two, the sleeker cousin of the original has a more contemporary space age look:

I’m toying with a chartreuse green paired with a deep orange.  The color in this picture doesn’t exactly capture what I’m looking for, and it may well look very different on your screen, but it gives an idea of what I’m considering at the moment.  And I just may change my mind drastically as I get samples from Prismatic Powders and play with combinations from actual powder coat color palettes. 

Stay tuned as Shapely Two evolves from a computer model to a physical touchable sculpture.

The Shapely Series
A childlike fascination with bright colors and puzzle pieces resurfaces as we play with vivid yet simple shapes; piecing them together to create flowing lines and a sensuous, more grown-up form.