A Copper Alliance Member
Copper in the Arts
Whimsical Wildlife: The Art of Andy Cobb
Frog Flower Girl, Copper Sculpture
Photo by Andy Cobb
A heron looking through binoculars, a frog painting a landscape: These are the types of figures Andy Cobb coaxes from copper. It’s a cast of characters that would be at home in a children’s storybook—in fact, his first frog was inspired by The Wind in the Willow—but adults around the country find them immensely appealing.
In many ways it’s a typical story. Cobb first created the sculptures as a hobby and gave them away for several years before people convinced him he could actually sell them.
“Just for fun I started putting up some pieces in local restaurants—that’s how a lot of amateur artists get started—and they started selling rather readily," says Cobb. “I just did the math and figured if I budgeted, I could probably make a living, and it’s worked out.”
Those budgeting skills and a sense of discipline were what assured Cobb’s talent would become financially viable.
I knew a lot of people who made art for living who had trouble with the business side,” says Cobb. “But coming from the business world, I set up a routine pretty quickly, because I was used to getting up and going five days a week.”
Cobb started out working with clay, but ultimately chose metal for its durability.
“I’ve done steel, I’ve done aluminum, and several other kinds of metals,” says Cobb. “But I wanted to do statues that used copper. Copper has this wonderful warmth to it that no other metal does. It’s almost alive; it has colors, it moves, it’s malleable, it feels like skin.”
Cobb begins creating his copper sculptures using Revere brand 16-ounce sheets bought wholesale through a nearby roofing company. He then brings an image to life from the ground up, welding, sautering and braising his way from a figure’s toes to the top of its head (or hat). Along the way, he constructs a steel infrastructure, since the gauge of copper he uses “is not strong enough for sculptures you want to last for hundreds of years.”
He then uses either a black or a green patina for frogs, and if the sculpture is destined for the indoors, he may add some paint to complete the costume.
Frog Gadot, Copper Sculpture
Photo by Andy Cobb
“Cancer took me out completely for about two years, so I’m down to working when it’s the right thing to do,” says Cobb. “And having the commissions come in and being able to pick and choose is making life easier as well.”
He concedes that doing shows is necessary when an artist is starting out, but they’re also a lot of hard work. He now markets exclusively online and says it has been years since he’s been between commissions. Over the years, his pieces have been bought for display throughout the U.S., the majority of them landing within 150 miles of his home in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Although Cobb began with serious wildlife pieces and still does those on occasion, the majority of commissions are his whimsical sculptures.
“The frogs can do anything so I get a lot of requests,” adds Cobb. “The whimsy is delightful for me.”
Resources:
Sculptor Jonathan Hertzel Debuts Rooted Family in Atlanta
Jonathan Hertzel's Rooted Family
Photo by Jonathan Hertzel
Hertzel, who recently exhibited The Gathering at the James A. Michener Art Museum, in Doylestown, PA, describes his newest bronze sculpture as a family unit.
“It appears like a tree trunk where two parental type figures arise,” says the Bucks County, PA based artist. “Within the figures, two children are depicted as small tornadoes swirling in and around the roots of their parents and all emerge from a rooted base. It’s like peering into the interior of a family unit where the parent’s labor of love harnesses and directs the unbounded energy generated from their children.”
Hertzel’s primary medium is bronze. He uses the Considine Foundry, in Lansdale, PA, that procures its bronze from the Atlas Metal Supply Co., in Denver, Colorado, and H. Kramer & Co., in Chicago, Illinois.
"Bronze is a wonderful material,” he says. “Visually, it’s beautiful with a gold colored patina, and a sculptor can derive beautiful tones from it. It’s extremely durable for both inside and outside. If you think of Greek sculptures that were created centuries ago, you realize that they’re still around because of the bronze. And, actually, bronze is 95% copper. I love the material and it works well for the type of imagery that I create, which involves lots of cantilevered pieces. I deal with many interior spaces, which is ideally suited for bronze pieces.”
Hertzel is familiar with the labor intensive process and amount of work involved in casting a piece, but the foundries he deals with are helpful in obtaining the magnificence of the finished product.
“Bronze is very flexible because it takes an array of different colors that can be applied,” he explains. “You can create traditional hues like reds and browns by applying the chemical ferric nitrate. Depending on what chemical is applied to the surface, different hues can be obtained. Plus, dyes are available, so it’s flexible with different approaches. I build one-of-a-kind pieces in the lost wax process and my models are built directly in wax. The wax is melted from the mold and then the bronze is poured into it. Rooted Family was 44 pieces all cast separately and then welded together.”
Currently, Hertzel has another project sitting in his studio and he’s been exhibiting at the Lowe Gallery, in Atlanta, Georgia and Santa Monica, California, at the Woodmere Art Museum and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, in Philadelphia, and the Ellerslie Museum in Trenton, New Jersey.
Resources:
Choosing The Best Copper Materials For Your Art
Photo courtesy of Flandrau Science Center
©2007 Arizona Board of Regents
"The quality of U.S. copper is better because it’s more free of stains," says Art Kunz who, along with his wife Catherine, owns Basic Copper, a copper supply house based in Illinois dealing exclusively in U.S. copper. "There are many reasons to seek out American copper. For one thing, it’s easier to visit a U.S. supplier," Art says, "That proximity is important when building a relationship. There tends to be lower minimums when you order, and you can get your supplies faster." Basic Copper doesn’t supply just to the U.S. market, they have customers in Australia, the UK and other countries. While U.S. exports of copper have nearly doubled from 2001 to 2005, purchasing copper from offshore sources, while less expensive, can result in longer lead times and steep tariffs, driving lower prices back up.
The top three non-U.S. copper suppliers are Chile, Germany and Russia, where copper quality is at times, intermittent. In speaking with many artists, they defined the four most important things they look for in a copper supplier: quality, delivery, service and price.
So what recommendations does Art have for those seeking a quality copper supplier in the states? "Good communication. Always ask questions." He says he’s seen too many artists who purchase supplies only to find out that a particular mil thickness isn’t right for a project. "Always request samples," he adds, to alleviate any concerns you might have with quality or the proper thickness for your specific project. This can be an issue in dealing with language differences in foreign suppliers.
Artist Andrew Goss of Andrew Goss Design in Toronto, Canada works in a variety of metals, including copper, which allows him to produce a variety of color.
"Copper is an essential part of my material vocabulary," says Goss. "It's a predictable, malleable element. I use a copper nitrate patina heated on to the surface and I can produce a range of colors including turquoise, tan and deep black."
He doesn't look for the "least expensive" copper he can find. With Goss, as with many artists, the overriding issue is finding a supplier who will ship small quantities.
"We accept orders of any size," says Catherine Kunz of Basic Copper. "That was our goal in starting the business. We wanted to provide great service to the artists, craftsperson and do-it-yourselfers who don't need large volumes of copper."
In the end, all successful relationships, business or otherwise, require a high level of communication. Finding the best supplier for your needs must include this necessity. Otherwise, you'll pay more in the long run for something you don't need, and those copper coins you spend for your art projects won't be worth it.
Resources:
Copper in the Arts: HISTORY
The History of Copper Arts
Copper as an art medium dates back to the fourth millennium B.C. when creating tools from native deposits of pure copper were popular. The first known documented copper resources were in Cyprus, Greece, and, in fact, the name ‘copper’ is actually derived from Kupros, a Greek island. This magnificent mineral was created at the beginning of the second millennium B.C., and was used in the Near East and Egypt throughout most of the second millennium.
In 3000 B.C., in the Egyptian Fourth Dynasty, proof exists that a copper-based paint called Egyptian Blue, a mixture of malachite with silicate and limestone, was painted on buildings, parchments and other objects. Roman uses of copper-based paints are found at Pompeii, where volcanic ash preserved artwork that wasn’t destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Yet, both ancient Romans and Greeks claim to have created the pigment verdigris, a bluish green color, by immersing copper plates in vats of fermenting grape leaves. The corrosion produced a blue crust that was washed and dissolved in vinegar, resulting in a deep green.
Copper was valuable, but the discovery of the Uluburun shipwreck, carrying Cypriot copper ingots when it sank off the southwestern coast of Turkey in the late fourteenth century B.C., proved that it was used for international trade. Soon, Renaissance painters like Rembrandt, Picasso and Goya used copper based pigments in painting and engraving plates for etchings and prints.
In Picasso’s famous 1935 composition of Minotauromachy, which denotes power and tenderness, the copper plate was steel-faced: a thin electroplated steel coating was applied to the plate’s surface to preserve the printing quality. When he completed Minotauromachy for a fifty-piece edition, even he wasn’t sure how many of the final edition were printed, and only certain numbers exist.
Rembrandt, known for his oil paintings, copper etching plates and millennium impressions, also worked with metal. It’s said that only 82 of the more than 300 copper etching plates are known to have survived centuries of war, proving the durability of copper.
Goya started his career as an engraver and used etchings or aquatint, (a type of water color), or a combination. Goya expanded aquatint’s tonal and expressive range, and drew images and etched designs on plates before plates dipping the plate in an acid bath that bites the exposed areas and embeds the surface design. According to early documented information, the process was discovered in 1660 and is still used the same way by today’s artists.
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Resources:
Copper in the Arts: NEWS
Copper Brings Dickinson’s Work to Life at Wave Hill Exhibit - April 28, 2007
Brece Honeycutt's Copper Markers at Wave Hill
Close up of Dickinson Poem Engraved on Copper Markers
Photos provided by Martha Gellens
walking home –
With gayer sandals go
The Crocus –
till she rises
The Vassal of the snow
The words come from perhaps the most famed gardener-poet in history, and serve as part of Wave Hill’s Emily Dickinson Rendered, a project featuring the takes of ten visual artists on the poet’s life and work, on display until May 25.
For Brece Honeycutt, a Washington, D.C. artist-historian who combines visual imagery with research, the project was a natural. She began by combing through books about Dickinson’s gardens in Amherst, Massachusetts.
"I read that Dickinson would send bunches of flowers with written poems tucked inside and that she would leave poems in the hedge between her brother’s house and hers, says Honeycutt. "She juxtaposed her poems with nature, so it seemed only fitting that the labels etched with her poems would be in the garden."
Honeycutt chose copper after discovering that it was often used, at Dickinson’s time, for garden labels.
"I wanted the labels to be weather-resistant, but also to react with the outdoor elements. For the exhibition, the labels hang on the walls inside the gallery and are bright and shiny, polished copper," she says. "Charles Day, my collaborator, and the interpretive gardener at Wave Hill, tends the labels and waits for the related plant to bloom. At this point he takes the label off the wall, attaches it to a stake and places it next to the plant."
The labels will stay with the plant throughout its blossoming—the copper aging and tarnishing as the flowers spring forth and fade—and then return to the gallery once the blossoms are gone.
"Copper changes over time, and I find all of these changes quite beautiful," she says. "When the labels are first placed in the garden, they are bright and reflect the sun, acting as beacons. Over time, the labels will begin to change colors, just as the plant changes and fades. At the beginning of March, I placed a label in my backyard and have been watching the changes in the surface as they take place. Now there are yellows and greens on the surface, a touch of purple, and the edges are becoming darker with green."
Honeycutt wrote the excerpts on her 36 copper plates with a Sharpie pen, after which they were etched in ferric chloride for one to two hours. A fabricator folded the triangular flaps, made to resemble the envelopes Dickinson would often use to scribble down her inspirations, and soldered on an attachment to be used for both wall-hanging and staking.
Honeycutt has made use of copper before, notably in Silence, an installation at Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore that uses books with copper pages to display etched texts related to the school’s founder, Mary Elizabeth Garrett.
Kristen Hileman, curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, says that Honeycutt’s art tells the stories of notable female figures "in a way that is intelligent and poetic, but never heavy-handed."
"Viewers undertake a process of discovery when they encounter Brece’s work," says Hileman. "Her art requires a smart, thoughtful interaction rather than a quick, superficial look. Brece also is incredibly adept at transforming fundamental materials—copper, glass, slate, bricks, paper—into elegant and beautiful representations of the narratives she seeks to communicate."
