A Copper Alliance Member
Copper in the Arts
Issue #33: January '10 - Cont'd
Anita DiPietro Designs
Copper bracelet by Anita Dipietro
Photograph by Paul David
DiPietro started her journey as an artist by working with stained glass, pulling design elements from her art studies and adding her own touches. But stained glass wasn’t quite the medium for the passion that she had inside of her.
“I took a metalsmithing class at one of the local galleries, and I learned the basics,” she says. “I just got instantly addicted to it.”
Anita Dipietro in her studio
Photograph by Paul David
Although she’s experimented with many mediums since, copper was her first and true love.
“I’ve always liked copper, but it was cheaper to use when I was starting out,” she says. “I really liked the way it looked with silver, the way they complemented each other.” DiPietro also appreciated the healing properties of copper. “Those properties always were interesting to me, especially the way it stimulates the flow of energy and helps with arthritis.” On her webpage, DiPietro lists the healing properties of both copper and silver, both of which she uses extensively in her art, as well as brass, semi-precious stones, glass, fossils, and found objects.
Bracelet design by Anita DiPietro
Photograph by Paul David
Since she started making art professionally four years ago, DiPietro has developed a line of delicate jewelry, including rings, necklaces, bracelets, and pins.
“When I started using copper, I got a lot of positive feedback because there are not too many people who work in copper for jewelry,” she says. “People seemed to like it, and I’ve actually had a lot of success with the copper, as far as sales, as opposed to silver.”
Resources:
Video of Anita DiPietro creating beautiful jewelry pieces from raw copper materials.
Anita DiPietro, Cherry Hill, NJ (856) 266-6537
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Anita DiPietro, Cherry Hill, NJ (856) 266-6537
Luster Metal Works: Transforming Metal
Copper bracelets by Luster Metal Works
Photograph courtesy of Susan Harbourt
After pulling miles of glinty sand dune heaps of copper wire onto her basement floor, Harbourt became eager to mold the raw old material into a lustrous treasure. Soon after, she founded a line of sterling silver and copper artisan jewelry named aptly, Luster Metal Works. Pounded out in a shop shared by her husband’s antique car restorations, Harbourt has accomplished hundreds of custom designs, forming classic messages of love, commitment, and philanthropy.
Her parents have both influenced her aesthetic: Harbourt’s father a successful aerospace engineer and her mother an English major, she finds the design spectrum sparring within her as she creates her work. “I have both of them warring inside of me,” she says of her parents, “artist and engineer… trying to get out.”
As a young woman, Harbourt’s training in materials engineering taught her to see all the possibilities in metal. While attending Virginia Tech on scholarship, her skills led her toward a successful career in product development. But she soon left that world for motherhood and a chance to design her own products, and has been designing jewelry ever since.
Custom designs made by antique hammersPhotograph courtesy of Susan Harbourt
Today Harbourt admits she needs to shuffle her husband’s projects to the side in order to find her work space beneath old carburetors and dismantled car engines, but is content when playing with the “luster” in her jewelry materials. “Copper is such a wonderful metal that transcends almost all areas of everyday life… It is in our money, our jewelry, our houses, our art, our cook wear, our body, it has medical and even antimicrobial benefits,” she says passionately. “It is an amazing metal that responds so beautifully to artistic manipulation and was revered in the ancient world.”
Harbourt’s alliance is not only to ancient metals, but antique tools as well. She reveres handmade hammers, which she scores from thrift stores, shops and local yard sales. ”When anyone stops by to see me they can often hear me melodically hammering away; tink, tink, tink,” she says.
One can tell the hammermarks are part of Harbourt’s trademark. Her bracelet and ring designs often bear the mark of one of her antique hammers, roughly chipped into a circular glitz. They often come in similar shapes with different stories, materials, and colors attach to them—which makes a nicely chosen accessory.
“I think jewelry often reflects the phase of life one is in,” she suggests. “When you are engaged, you celebrate that with a diamond ring, when you marry you seal that with a ring. When I was a young professional I wore jewelry that was vibrant, trendy, and made a statement. Now that I am a little older, I prefer jewelry that is classic and can be worn with jeans and a t-shirt as well as a cocktail dress.”
Harbourt’s interest is in transmogrifying old materials to new, often using old resources around her. Her process often involves several well-planned steps. After concept sketches, she creates her prototypes in copper because of its ability to be shaped and hand-tweaked. Though she often goes on to cast those pieces in silver, she admits she often saves the copper trials as her own. “Part of the reason is to work out the design concept with an economical and forgiving metal, but the real reason is because I love copper and tend to keep the prototype for my own collection.”
Looking toward the next decade, Harbourt looks forward to incorporating gold, palladium and other materials into her designs, focusing specifically on phase diagrams and crystal growth in metals.
She looks forward to furthering her designs for philanthropic foundations and has a special affinity for commitment ceremonies. “It is an honor to be asked to make such an intimate item as the token that represents the commitment and love shared between a couple,” Harcourt says. “It is also a little amazing to think of all the memories and events that ring will bear witness to in that couples lives.”
Resources:
Luster Metal Works, Homer, IL
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Speaking through Copper
Artist L. Brook Johnson at work on her
signature patina copper panels
Photograph courtesy of L. Brooke Johnson
“One day I decided to try and patinate it, so I poured on some chemicals, walked away and came back and thought, ‘Wow, this is just fabulous!’ because of the patterns left from the chemicals flowing,” she recalls. “I mounted it and hung it in my house and people noticed it.”
Today, after years of experimenting, Johnson has found the perfect recipe, layering and timing of chemicals for her popular patinated copper artwork, which can be up to 8-foot-by-4-foot in size. All work must be done outside, which results in a unique set of elements on any given day in Colorado Springs, Colo., at the foothills of an inspirational backdrop like Pikes Peak. “I can only get blue tones when it’s freezing cold outside,” she says. “But shades of verdigris can happen at any time.
Johnson has developed her signature patina process over the past few years, and treats her copper with a mixture of three to seven chemicals, manipulating temperature, time and various chemical layering to create her unique patterns.
Close up of the artist's signature patina
Photograph courtesy of L. Brooke Johnson
Johnson claims it’s actually not the patina process that’s as time-consuming as the mounting of the artwork, a combination of drilling through Plexiglass, framing and drilling some more.
Many restaurants throughout Colorado have found Johnson’s work to be the perfect addition to their swanky dining rooms, and her work can be seen in The Warehouse Restaurant and Gallery as well as The Famous Steakhouse in Colorado Springs. Johnson has also shipped out orders to Ohio, New Jersey, California and Arizona.
Resources:
L. Brooke Johnson Studios, Colorado Springs, CO, (719) 321-5823
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Copper in the Arts: NEWS
Automata: Contemporary Mechanical Sculpture - January 16, 2010
Neil Hardy, The Early Bird, 2004, wood,
brass, paint, 9 x 9 x 5 in. Croft Collection
Photograph courtesy of Chazen Museum
of Art
Traditionally, the term "automaton" referred to a mechanized device constructed to perform actions as if by its own motive power. Like robots, animatronics, and clockwork figures, early automata were engineered to imitate life; thus, their inner workings were hidden from view. Notable examples of self-moving naturalistic sculptures include jointed religious effigies of ancient Egypt, pneumatic models of ancient Greece, a mechanical orchestra created for the emperor during China’s Han Dynasty, and monumental animated water clocks of the medieval Islamic world.
Dean Lucker, Man Drinking in the Moon,
2009, wood, metal, paint, 13 x 7 x 4 in.
Photograph courtesy of Chazen Museum
of Art
Today’s artist-designed automata tend toward imaginative storytelling, suspending reality and exploring playful worlds beyond everyday existence. Many sculptors are drawn to automata for the expressive possibilities of working with wood, metal, and wire in motion. They also incorporate the element of time, using the wind-up and release of mechanical tension to parallel the build-up and punch line of a tale. Many artists appreciate the mass appeal of mechanical sculpture and find great satisfaction in seeing how audiences experience the work.
Resources:
Chazen Museum of Art, 800 University Ave., Madison, WI, (608) 263-2246
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