The following day we rise early and it is bright, really fucking bright and freezing. We sit together contemplating the day ahead and I am brimming inside as I haven’t done any smithing since that terrible August, yes that one, don’t forget, never forget. We stroll down to the forge with the cold nipping at our ears and hands and Chris says “I’ll have to light the fire when we get down there” and sadly it doesn’t warm the workshop. If they were all up and running there would have been seven power hammers. There are five forges and as many anvils, vises, and a wide selection of hammers and tongs as well as numerous other hand tools. There is a box folder, a few guillotines both handheld and electric, saws and plenty of welders ranging from mig to tig and more experienced users than you can shake a stick at. All of the occupants know what they are doing, no room for error here, and that’s when it hits me, I actually know what I am doing and how to do it, and quite possibly better than some of the other people here.
Visual aesthetic design starts from the word go. We start by finishing off some candlestick holders that Chris is making for a show to be held at not quite alongside the other makers and artists. We sit there and consider bases for the holders. They are forge fabricated with a forged element in the centre. The base is the most important part now and we decide that a simple square base is required, we go back to the sketchbook and look around the workshop for further inspiration. All of the machines and tools have similar bases, they all have flanges on them to give a larger surface area for greater stability so we decide to add this feature on to the candle holder bases alongside some very thick steel. Aesthetically this works and the decision is finalised and the pieces are almost complete. I ask him what sort of finish he is considering. Simple he says, we are going to leave the rust on the metal and paint them with an industrial blue paint and hopefully the rust will work its way out onto the surface to give it that worn industrial feel. Continuous considerations are made all the way through the construction, Chris says that he has stopped counting the number of changes that take place throughout these projects. However he then points out that when working to commission he sticks to the designs that have been agreed by the customer/ clients. The candlesticks are part of what he calls ‘speculative work’, they are not commissioned merely stabs in the dark for their show, he continues to say that this is not his type of work that he would normally choose to do and I get the feeling that it is almost a means to an end.
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