Artist / Blacksmith Charlie Spademan

In January of this year I received a call from Joan Furlong, a designer with Davies Associates Landscape Architects, LLC, inquiring whether I had any interest in participating in a designer showhouse.  Mansion in May is a fundraising event held every few years by the Women’s Association of Morristown Memorial Hospital, offering interior designers and landscape architects an opportunity to design and execute a vision that represents their firm’s best work.   As the number of interested designers far outstrips the number of spaces  available to them, Mansion in May presents an opportunity to view the work of of many of the most talented firms in this region.  Davies Associates was interested in one particular space, a courtyard located between the main building and a guest cottage.  Joan’s concept was to present a theme for this space as “a Blacksmith’s Garden”, and invited me to create the ironwork that would fulfill this vision.  Davies Associates was awarded the space based on this concept.  We met at the space one brisk January day to view the site, and began shaping our work:

When designing work for a specific space, I usually begin by searching for existing elements that I can use as inspiration, both as a way to give my work relevance to the space, but also as a tool to expand my thoughts about design possibilities.  When we were visiting the site, I observed that the ground was littered with seedpods from the Honey Locust trees surrounding the patio.

I decided that these seedpods would be my inspiration for two of the pieces I would create; sections of garden railing at one end of the patio:

and an arching arbor at the other entrance:

Clicking HERE will show how each of the hundred or so leaves in the arbor was forged.

Davies Associates brought in 4th generation stonemason John Cortese to work with them on the design of the patio surface.  John had recently returned from a visit to his native Italy, and proposed a patio design based on the simple beauty and geometry of ancient stone paving he had seen in Sicily.  It was the geometry of the paving design that informed my designs for the other pieces I would ultimately create; an outdoor dining table with bench seats:

and an iron trellis for the cottage wall:

Davies Associates collaborated with Stonegate Landscape Professionals  on plantings to compliment the patio design and my ironwork.  Karen Waldron of Classic Home and Garden provided the stoneware pottery and tableware.  Michael Deo of Naturescape Lighting worked to illuminate the Blacksmith’s Garden at night.  The patterns of shadows he has achieved with his creative lighting of our work adds a whole new dimension to the Garden for evening visitors.

THE BLACKSMITH’S GARDEN

OK; so it’s been 6 months since my last entry.  I’ve been busy.  Below are images and descriptions of a couple of recently completed projects.  Clicking on an image should take you to my gallery, where there are additional pictures of each project.

Woodland Table

July 2008.

This photo shows a portion of a table I made for a client’s hallway.  I wanted to make the table look as though the supporting “branches” were squeezing the frame supporting the top.  The overall size of this piece is 78″ x 20″ x 32″high.  My client also asked that I include a representation of a small bird, sitting on a crossbar (click to see); I found this to be the most challenging part of this work.

Gate, for a residence in Montclair

Completed in August, 2008

Rather than having the scrolls simply lay on top of a framework of bars, I have the vertical bars weaving through the scrolls, as in a basketweave.  The scroll ends are tapered and wrap around the gate framework.

Railings, Upper Montclair

Completed October, 2008

Continuing the theme of the gate, I used similar wrap-around elements in this work.  The posts are forged from 1 1/2″ solid square bar, with a diamond motif at the top echoing the muntin bars in my client’s home.  The handrails wrap around the posts at top and bottom.  My aim was to keep this work as organic as possible.  It has an antique copper finish, to match existing lighting fixtures.

I’ve been working for the last few days on a new photo gallery for my work, as I have never been particularly satisfied with the presentation of the slideshow that I had linked to this site. Additionally, I wanted to have a separate album for the pictures that Jackie Yarmo had taken of my studio a week or so ago. The link to my new photo gallery is HERE, as well as in the sidebar to the right. It is still very much a work in progress, lots to do with labeling and re-ordering pictures, etc., but I was anxious to get it out there.

…from scratch. Though I liked the small pair of machine-made scissors that I used in the sample (click to see sample) for BangZ, I felt that they seemed a bit “alien” to the rest of the artwork, as all other elements were hand-made by me. Thus; today I made shears, finishing 4 pair. I’ll probably need 4 or 5 more, in a different size.

My first pair, resting on my anvil