A Copper Alliance Member
Copper in the Arts
SLD Designs: Unique, Original, and Always Adapting
Sharon Delong in her retail store, SLD Designs.Photograph by Paul David
Hand crafted Rose Petal from Sharon DelongPhotograph courtesy of Sharon Delong
When she gets an idea for a design, she just goes with it.
"While I am interested in all mediums of metalsmithing, I love copper the most because of its warmth, beauty and versatility,” says Delong. “The soft nature of copper makes it easy to work with and it's similar to working with sterling. Some of my copper remains natural, while some is heated with an acetylene torch to obtain amazing colors.”
Her preference for flowers inspired her "Blooms from My Garden" line. Each piece is unique to her and every bloom is different. She hand-hammers and forms the metal flowers using copper, brass, nickel silver and sterling. Some creations include found objects like buttons or beads.
She purchases much of her copper from industrial salvage yards. “Most of my creations begin in the form of sheet metal and/or wire which I cut down using my band saw,” she explains. “Then I use my jeweler's saw to cut out my flower designs. I also buy copper tubing from the plumbing department at the hardware store that I cut into tiny sections. After I hammer and shape the metal, I utilize both cold and hot connections in my jewelry and I make and use all my own rivets. I solder the bales that hold the piece onto the chain.”
Delong creates copper necklaces, bracelets, earrings and pins to match, all with her signature patina that gives her work an elegant antique look.
She also guarantees the quality and workmanship of her jewelry and will repair or replace any piece she makes. Although established, Delong is always trying to learn more learn about the design process. She currently shares her craft teaching chain maille and other jewelry-making classes at Flower and Craft Warehouse in Blue Ball, PA and is a member of The Berks Chapter Guild of Craftsmen.
Resources:
SLD Designs, Birdsboro, PA, (484) 333-1914
Sweet Freedom Designs: Reborn through Copper
Freeform Blue, Green, and Copper BeadedMetal Necklace.
Photograph courtesy of Lesley Garrison
“I had a formal life--a pre-jewelry life,” says Garrison. “I mean, I bought jewelry all the time, but I had a corporate job, working for the government in the medical field, and it was sucking the life out of me. I was looking for alternative things to do.”
She found the answer while on vacation at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, Arizona, taking several of the beading classes they offered at the all-inclusive resort.
“All of a sudden, I realized that I could do this,” says Garrison. “I came home, all excited, and within six months I quit my job with an early out pension opportunity. Hence, the name of my company, Sweet Freedom.”
Based out of Aiken, S.C., Garrison soon fell upon another opportunity in June 2007 to increase profits in her newfound career when a studio opened up just about 20 miles away in Augusta, Georgia. The space has been perfect, serving Garrison not only a fully stocked studio, but also a place where she can create her own beading supplies, showcase her completed designs, and even hold workshops to teach other jewelry lovers in the area.
Garrison’s handcrafted expressions are a fusion of silversmithing, copper work, bead weaving, wire wrapping and glass-fusing. Sometimes a few of those techniques are combined into one piece, leaving her free to experiment with new designs.
Etched Copper Pendant with Azurite-Malachiteand Swarovski Crystals.
Photograph courtesy of Lesley Garrison
Garrison attends the William Holland School of Lapidary Arts in Georgia four times a year to fine-tune her jewelry-making skills.
“Copper is so forgiving to work with,” she continues. “If I hammer a mark or a hole in the wrong place, I can just rework it into the design. And it’s an affordable medium. I get a lot of comments about the unique and affordability about my pendants and bracelets. My line appeals to different people.”
Especially unique is Garrison’s tribute to the South Carolina state flag, with her palmetto and moon copper-and-silver enameled pendant.
“My creativity was stifled in my pre-jewelry life, but now I have my hands in everything like this,” she says.
Resources:
The Copper Panels of Artist Bruce McCall
A selection of Bruce McCall's copper panels, made from applying a range of materials–from sand and leaves to wood blocks and snow–to heated sheets of copper. Photograph courtesy of Bruce McCall
“Look at images that we get back from the Hubble space telescope,” he says. “In my copper art, that is what I’m trying to portray.” McCall says he has always been amazed that the Hubble images are not more celebrated, since they show what space looked like some 10 billion years ago. “I have a computer chock full of space images,” he said, “and copper captures space images beautifully.”
Although McCall has spent the last twenty years forging art from steel and copper, he came to metalwork with a more utilitarian focus. After graduating college with a degree in English, he longed to do something more material, and began to learn carpentry. This led to an acquaintance with a Vermont metalworker that he began working for in 1981, restoring metal antiques for use in the state’s burgeoning restaurant industry.
After that, McCall moved to San Diego, spending a year and a half as a metalworker focused on steel before returning to Vermont and shifting to jewelry.
“The scale of jewelry didn’t work for me,” he said. “I needed something bigger.”
The artist Bruce McCall.Photograph courtesy of Bruce McCall
“I realized, all of a sudden, that I was an administrator rather than an artist, and I started making artwork,” McCall said. He continues to this day.
Although perhaps more known for his work with steel, McCall has made art with copper for decades.
“Copper is a remarkably soft and friendly material,” he said, noting that the metal’s best characteristic is also its worst. “The fact that it wants to oxidize so readily is beautiful, but it doesn’t weather outside predictably.”
In creating his copper panels, McCall works entirely outdoors, to facilitate the oxidation of copper that give his works their characteristic textured appearance. He starts with 4’ x 8’ sheets of copper sourced from a Connecticut company, which he cuts to his preferred size. Using a 40-ton press to minimize warping, McCall heats the metal with two torches: an oxyacetylene flame for maximum heat and a propane pavement burner for slower heating.
To create his intricate and chaotic designs, McCall uses a range of materials, from metal tools to wood, sawdust, leaves, sand, and even snow. Depending on the season, he cools the metal with snow, water, or simply air, before applying a high-grade wax to seal the surface.
McCall, who exhibits his work at a wide range of trade shows, craft shows and galleries throughout the year, is grateful for the chance to make art his livelihood.
“I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing with my hours on the planet, and that’s a blessing,” he said.
While most mornings find him in studio preparing for the next show, this father of two dedicates his afternoons to caring for his two young sons, ages 11 and 13. The two share their father’s artistic sensibility, although McCall says one is precise and calculated while the other is more abstract. Both, of course, are qualities that McCall himself cultivates as an artist.
“Our latest project has been making samurai swords for my sons’ Lego characters,” McCall said. The swords, he noted, are made from steel, bronze, and copper. “Hundreds of years after we’re gone, those little swords will probably be here,” he said. “And I think that’s kind of cool.”
Resources:
Copper in the Arts: EVENTS
- Palm Beach Jewelry, Art, and Antique Show
Feb 15, '13 - Feb 18, '13 - Native Expressions: Dave McGary’s Bronze Realism
Mar 7, '13 - Jun 30, '13 - Evolving Character Head Demonstration with John Coleman
Mar 9, '13 - Mar 9, '13 - More Upcoming Events...
Copper in the Arts: NEWS
Getty Museum Presents Ancient Cambodian Bronze Masterpieces from the Khmer Empire - March 03, 2011
Incense burner or lamp, Cambodia Angkor period 12th century Bronze, H x W x D: 30.5 x 25 x 13 cm.Photograph courtesy of National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh.
Culled entirely from the collection of the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, Gods of Angkor features 26 magnificent sculptures and ritual objects, including bronze sculptures created during the Angkor period (9th to 15th centuries). Among the Angkorian pieces are some of the finest and most beautiful Cambodian bronzes in existence.
The Crowned Buddha, a rare 12th Century bronze from the Angkor period will be on display. This figure was excavated in nine pieces on the grounds of the temple of Angkor Wat in 1931. Once joined, the two hands subsequently became separated from the body again; only recently were they located and reattached by staff at the National Museum’s Metal Conservation Laboratory. The restoration revealed the figure’s distinctive pose, with both hands gesturing the expression for “fear not.” The standing, crowned Buddha in bronze was a common icon in the western territory of the expanded Khmer empire (present-day central Thailand).
“We are delighted to give visitors to the Museum this rare opportunity to see these exquisite Khmer bronzes on the West Coast, particularly given the local presence of the largest Cambodian community in the United States,” explains David Bomford, acting director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “We are deeply grateful to our colleagues at the National Museum of Cambodia for lending us so many important pieces for this exhibition.”
This exhibition is the result of an ongoing partnership between the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries and the National Museum of Cambodia that began in 2003, when the National Museum approached the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., for help in the conservation of the bronze works. In 2005, the Getty Foundation provided the support for a conservation survey of the bronzes, which had suffered due to lack of resources and years of political turmoil. During the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, the museum was abandoned with much of the bronze collection left in its basement. Since the 1980s, the museum had been working to document and conserve their holdings and to enhance storage conditions, at times collaborating with international experts. Many pieces, however, had yet to be examined.
The grant from the Getty Foundation enabled the Smithsonian to have conservators survey the condition of the collection and to perform conservation treatment on the most atrisk objects, but perhaps more importantly, to help the National Museum develop a long-term strategic plan for its bronze conservation program. The greatest result of this international collaboration is the National Museum’s new Metals Conservation Laboratory—the first in Cambodia. Seven of the works on view, which were discovered in 2006, are among the first bronzes conserved in the laboratory by the staff of the National Museum of Cambodia.
