A Copper Alliance Member
Copper in the Arts
Issue #22: February '09 - Cont'd
Fit for a King’s Dog: Collier Leeds
Mary Oswald, owner of Collier Leeds
Photograph by Paul David
She had a good artistic eye and an appreciation for art, but admits “I never considered myself artistic, and I was never crafty.” Oswald was no slouch, though. She had ten years’ experience in an auction house, and a background in the fashion jewelry and headwear industries.
She created Collier Leeds, an up-and-coming business in Virginville, PA. And the story of Oswald’s history-inspired collars is, well, inspiring.
The brainstorm to create hand-welded, high-end dog collars occurred to Oswald while on a family trip to England in 2005. A bit of a history buff and always interested in an adventure, Oswald learned of a dog collar museum at Leeds Castle in Kent and was intrigued.
The museum housed elaborate collars, adorned by gems and metal work, worn by dogs of days gone by. She admired the dog collars, which were from the last four centuries and ranged from spiked, medieval hunting collars that protected dogs from boar attacks to lovely, delicate collars for beautiful dogs of the elite.
One Piece at a Time
Oswald noted that today’s market placed no emphasis on “spectacular collars.” This, she knew first hand, because she was always searching for a great dog collar for her own pups, Lizzie and Louis. Examining the brass components soldered together on the antique collars, she wondered, “How hard can it be?” It was then that the idea for Collier Leeds blossomed.Oswald searched high and low for brass pieces at a reasonable price without going offshore to establish the building blocks of her business. The Internet led her to sources including Providence, Rhode Island and she began combining the brass findings she collected.
“I pick out shapes that I find interesting and piece them together,” explains Oswald. She uses stamped pieces in decorative shapes, filigree, and even genuine semi-precious stones to design the unique medallions on Collier Leeds collars.
When Oswald first attempted to solder the pieces together, she says it was very crude and messy. As she refined her skills, she learned that the brass needs to be hot enough to accept the solder as well as for the solder to melt to form a bond. “It’s a little like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich the way it meshes together, “ she laughs.
With guidance from jewelry designer friends, Oswald discovered she needed an Acetylene and Oxygen mix from her local gas dealer and a special torch to create the right conditions for the fine work. She refined her skills to create the beautiful pieces she’d envisioned.
Brass collar adornments, Collier Leeds
Photograph by Paul David
Oswald attaches stunning 2nd century A.D Roman Military and 12th-13th century A.D Russian reproductions cast to complete her design. The buckle, dee rings and medallions are electroplated and lacquered in Massachusetts to ensure a lasting finish.
Going Forward
Oswald offers eight collar styles – each named after a favorite “pooch” – in eight color and metal combinations for under $100. Her collection is available online at selective craft shows, and at the gift store of Godfreys of Mohnton, PA (a Dogdom in Berks County, Pennsylvania). She also contributes products to live auction and animal fundraisers, such as the Alabama Weimaraner Rescue League.Several new designs are on the horizon. One is a half-inch wide collar for very small dogs. Another is a wider, two-and-a-half inch collar for long-necked dogs. Oswald is also exploring the use of turquoise and soldered brass charms.
She’s also considered creating collars for our own local “royal” dogs, like incumbent Vice President’s pooch, Chester, and the promised incumbent Presidential puppy. As for what’s next for Collier-Leeds, much like Oswald herself, she says, “It’s ever-evolving.” But, Oswald has been garnering a lot of attention for her ornate collars, with regional press and an article in Traditional Home magazine later this spring. So, now pooches around the country will be getting the collars they deserve.
Resources:
Collier Leeds, Virginville, PA, (610) 349-5460
Mary Oswald demonstrating her handmade brass ornament fabrication process.
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Mary Oswald demonstrating her handmade brass ornament fabrication process.
Mission Metal: Reflecting Nature's Beauty with Copper
Rex Morton of Mission Metal
Courtesy of Mission Metal
The pair demonstrates their creative process year-round at the well-known Missouri theme park Silver Dollar City, where they share their secrets with potential customers. Impressed with their work, some commission pieces, like the Morton’s latest--a stunning life-size bald eagle that took the artists 400 hours of painstaking work priced at fifteen thousand dollars.
According to Rex, the pair formed Mission Metal in 2006, but have been collaborating and perfecting their art for nearly 40 years. Today, Mission Metal sells unique handmade oil lamps, weavings, birdfeeders, and copper animals including birds, fish and insects.
The couple chose copper as their medium for two separate reasons: Rex was always interested in antiques and his family’s roots trace back to copper.
“My uncle repaired candle holders and lanterns,” Rex explains. “He became an artist and taught at Penland, the renowned craft school in North Carolina. He wrote me a letter and told me you can sell anything made out of copper. I was going to be a painter and when I got back from Vietnam I went to college at the University of Oregon, Eugene. I majored in fine art and I took a metal sculpture class. Because I liked antiques and copper, I asked my teacher if I could do some raising because I’d seen some of the pieces he’d done. That did it---I never painted again. I then dropped out and started making stuff. There was a Saturday market in Eugene where I sold everything I made. I kept at it.”
Marsha first started using copper when she was throwing pots.
“I wanted to use copper handles on coffee mugs and teapots,” she says.
The Morton’s process involves researching their subject thoroughly to get a good feel for the true character of their sculpture, a process they just completed for a recent eagle project.
“This is the third one we did,” Rex says. “The first two were commissioned pieces so we were prompted to do some research on these fascinating birds. I saw a picture of an eagle that was just about to land and I thought that was a good pose, one that you don’t normally see. I showed it to Marsha and said let’s do this.”
The Mortons then bought sheets of copper from Three State Supply or Rose Metal, and spent weeks looking at pictures.
“The one photo we started with was the front view,” says Rex. “To do a three dimensional sculpture you have to become familiar with the bird. I bought an eagle book which had feather groups described and from there we spent a few weeks doing paper patterns. From that we cut out the copper and I hammer it. Each feather is hand hammered and the veins are put in the feathers with an antique rotary sheet metal tool I’ve adapted for design.”
Marsha works on the design part and is great with a torch. Once the pieces are hammered, Rex builds a skeleton and each layer of feathers is attached to that skeleton. Then they’re soldered at high temperature by Marsha. The pieces are then shaped, hammered, attached, taken off and re-hammered. “There is a fine line between an eagle, a parrot and a hawk,” Rex notes. “There are tiny details that make it look like an eagle.”
The next segments of their process is coloring. The Mortons go back over the piece with the torch and color the feathers by using heat which produces different shades of light and dark.
“When we color the copper we never know exactly what it’s going to do,” he says. “With our weavings sometimes I get a group of strips colored one way and another group colored another way and when we weave those two groups together they take on a whole new life.”
Another intriguing step is the final step: a coat of lacquer. Rex uses a lacquer made specifically for copper but says you can use any exterior clear lacquer.
“It’s intriguing because some colors will disappear and other colors will come out,” he says. “There are so many accidents that turn out beautiful.”
Their next project, currently in the design stage, will be a Great Blue Heron. Living in Table Rock Lake, the Mortons have plenty of eagles, herons, osprey in their environment and they go on nature hikes for inspiration. “We enjoy the woods and have become more educated about nature,” Rex says. “We’re also doing a crappie on a rock and driftwood we found in the lake. You’ll be able to see above and below the water.
Together, the Mortons continue to grow Mission Metal, complementing each other’s artistic nature.
“Rex and I collaborate,” Marsha adds. “Lots of times I come up with an idea and I’ll draw it out and he can put it together. He has the ability to know exactly what it will take to build it out of the copper. It’s a team effort. We complement each other. I’ve always enjoyed the natural world. You can pull a lot from what is around you.”
Resources:
Mission Metal, 399 Indian Point Rd.,Branson, MS, (417) 338-8259
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Copper in the Arts: HISTORY
Copper Arts Museum to Open in Clarksdale
The collection of the Meinke family
Courtesy of Elaina Meinke
The collection began in 1919, when Pearl Meinke opened an antiques shop in northern Minnesota. Copper exerted a special appeal from the very beginning and became the primary focus in the early 1960s when John and Pat Meinke took over the family business.
In the year 2000, under the leadership of Clark and Elaina Meinke, the family began searching for new directions for their collection.
"It was at this point that we started thinking about establishing a museum devoted to copper, partly as a place to store the collection, but mostly as a way to share the collection with others who love copper as much as we do," says Elaina Meinke.
As the Meinkes began their search for a suitable location, Arizona immediately came to mind because it's “The Copper State.” Then it was a matter of finding the right town. At first, Jerome looked like the ideal place - a mining town set on the slopes of the mountain under which the state's largest copper mine was located. But there were no buildings in Jerome large enough for the kind of museum they envisioned. Just down the hill, however, was the town of Clarksdale and an old high school there was for sale. Even better, Clarksdale was a company town created in 1912 to serve the workers at a new smelter works owned by the same company that owned the mine under Jerome. Business boomed in the paired towns until the mid-50s, when the ore ran out and the smelter closed down.
"It was a tough history for a lot of people, but it was the perfect place for us because it was all about copper," says Clark Meinke. "So, in 2002, we bought the school and got to work.”
When the museum opens in 2011, its spaces will display weather vanes, architectural panels, cupolas, musical instruments, and laboratory and medical equipment. However, the vast majority of the works exhibited will consist of cookware, service ware and decorative ware: pots, pans, roasters and molds; trays, urns and tureens; candelabra and vases; and just about any other type of object that might be found in the kitchen or dining room of a home or estate.
While a small number of pieces date to the Bronze Age, the collection starts in earnest with the 16th Century and emphasizes wares produced in Europe and America.
Clark Meinke describes how "you have to get well into the 1500s and the new supply of copper coming from the New World before you start seeing greater numbers and a greater variety of copper pieces. Copper was such a valuable and useful material that just about everything made from it would be melted down and remade into other things.”
Determining a precise age for a piece is often difficult anyway, Meinke points out. Very few older pieces bear the name or stamp of their maker and even fewer are dated. There's also the problem that copper was considered a poor man's metal and often was created by skilled but uncelebrated smiths or artisans, even by people we'd today call hobbyists. The only way to approximate a date for most of these pieces is by trying to match them to details in contemporary paintings, murals and tapestries whose origins are better established.
This kind of research reveals that animal motifs were particularly popular during the 1700s and that botanical motifs such as grapes, florals and leaves dominated the 1800s. The overall shape of a piece is similarly revealing of the era that produced it.
By the early 20th century, however, these temporal and stylistic distinctions begin to break down. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Meinke's extensive collection of “Trench Art;” works created by soldiers from all over Europe serving on both sides of World War I. To relieve the alternating boredom and anxiety of battle, and to produce souvenirs, they engraved spent brass artillery shells and bullet casings with images of the local terrain and maps of battlefields where they'd fought. They re-shaped the cylindrical forms into models of tanks and airplanes, and occasionally produced forms that served as vases or tankards for beer. The stylistic and technical variation of these pieces commingled traditional habits of working copper from regions throughout Europe and the United States. It was a truly international effort that effected copper craftsmanship and design ever since.
Copper in the Arts: NEWS
George Segal on View at the Nasher Sculpture Center - February 02, 2009
Rush Hour, 1983
Courtesy of Nasher Sculpture Center
George Segal (1924–2000) is considered one of the most important and influential American artists of the twentieth century. Although he initially focused his efforts on painting, his career took a turn in the early 1960s when he began using plaster to create life-size figures that he presented together with elements from everyday environments, such as chairs, benches, window frames, and other building fragments. Many of the works in George Segal: Street Scenes portray men and women, young and old, sitting, walking, and talking. In addition, the works address commonplace aspects of the city from cinema marquees to parking garages, diners, and buses.
Starting in the 1970s and continuing through the 1990s, Segal’s work explored the reality of urban decay throughout the twentieth century, with many works focusing specifically on Manhattan’s East Village. Individuals in his works were shown lying on the ground or over subway grates, sitting on stoops, and crossing in front of walls covered with punk graffiti. The plaster or bronze figures are contemplative, sometimes forlorn, and always realistic.
With subjects and settings that addressed commonplace situations, human values, and the burdens of economic hardship, these signature works caught the attention of the public and were broadly acclaimed by art critics, curators, art historians, and other artists. Among the many honors Segal received during his lifetime were the International Lifetime Achievement Award for Sculpture (1992) and the National Medal of Honor (1999).
Organized by the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Madison, WI, the exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated hardbound catalogue with essays by Martin Friedman, Director Emeritus of the Walker Art Center, and Jane Simon, MMoCA Curator. Thirteen photographs by Segal’s friend and assistant, Donald Lokuta, will accompany the show and provide insight into his working process.
After visiting the Nasher Sculpture Center, George Segal: Street Scenes will travel to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri (May 9–August 2, 2009), and the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida (September 8–December 6, 2009). The exhibition premiered at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.
Resources:
Nasher Sculpture Center, 2001 Flora St., Dallas, TX, (214) 242-5100
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