Canceling ABANA

We registered early for the ABANA conference in Delaware but recently cancelled our reservations because there just seemed to be too many conflicting events.  Our refund check arrived yesterday.  Unfortunately, I had to miss the last conference too.  I’m still looking forward to going to the BAM conference in about a week. I hope it is warmer this year.  

I’ve never been to the Quadstate Roundup so I’m looking at trying to get to it this year.  The SOFA event is near the end of September in Troy, Ohio.  It’s only an 11 hour drive for us.  Their website doesn’t have the full schedule posted yet but I’ll keep checking.

Oleh’s Urella

When I recently reviewed the images I took at the ABANA La Crosse conference in 2002 I saw the folder for Oleh Bonkovskyi.  Incidentally, I have seen his first and last names spelled in a variety of ways.  When I arrived at that conference I almost immediately visited the gallery and was impressed with the pieces he had on display so I resolved to spend time watching him demonstrate.  I had seen his younger assistant, Sergij Polubatko (again, spelling uncertain) at the Flagstaff 2000 conference. There are both, now, well known Ukrainian artist blacksmiths.

I did enjoy watching them work, took a few pictures and their creation, Urella, was the only piece I bid on in the auction and was lucky to get it.  His work has appeared in the Anvil’s Ring on at least two occasions.  In the 1998 Spring issue on pages 36 and 37 there are four variations of the same candlestick theme displayed in Urella.  Additional pieces of his work were in the Fall issue of 2001.

I had been intending to write something about this for quite a while but when I stumbled onto the following two archival links it sealed the deal.

http://www.bgop.org/newsletters/2002-01.pdf   The Blacksmiths’ Guild of the Potomac helped to arrange for Oleh’s 2002 USA visit:  And in the issue which followed the conference 

http://www.bgop.org/newsletters/2002-07.pdf  there appeared an image of my Urella.  So, I decided to post a couple of images of Urella today, although they aren’t of professional quality.

I found some additional information about Oleh and will post the link although I don’t have any personal connection to the events.  The site said, in “2007 and 2008 Oleh Bonkovsky and Charles Hughes preformed demonstrations for the Pittsburgh Area Artist Blacksmith Association at the shop of the association's President, John Steel.”

http://hughescchd1.com/about_us

I was fortunate to pass Oleh after the auction and we posed together.

Urella today without the usual blue and yellow candles symbolizing the flag of the Ukraine.

The touchmark.

Treadle Torch Followup Number Two

Tonight I checked the mail and found my copy of ABANA’s Hammer’s Blow, Vol 21, #2, Spring 2013.  On page 12 is a very detailed article by H. Kent Hepworth showing how to assemble a Gasaver Treadle Torch Stand and it presents a lot of valuable technical details which I haven’t  included in my posts.  Check it out.

A Patina Experiment

I wanted to submit something to the members gallery at the ABANA conference in Richmond, Kentucky in July 2004.  In addition I wanted to experiment with using different metals to create a piece with a lot of color.

I decided to make a panel which would be a “painting in metal” of an autumn woodland. When I am creating a complicated piece I imagine a story which goes with it.  I think that technique helps a lot with design.  In this case I was inspired by the familiar Robert Frost poem, “The Road Not Taken” http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html

and my memories of driving the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina with the golden leaves falling in a spectacular show.  

I used materials I already had on hand.  I assembled a textured mild steel frame and constructed the larger foreground trees from textured mild steel the added some background bronze trees.  The road was copper sheet, the sky brass sheet and the forest floor was several layers of mild steel sheet with different textures.  

It seemed to be a helpful learning experience although there were quite a few points where I felt the result was disappointing.  Achieving the illusion of depth was much harder than I imagined.  But I felt I had learned enough to be able to do it “better the next time” which is my usual goal with an experiment.

When I brought the panel back to the studio I hung in on the wall for a while and continued my critique.  Eventually, it occurred to me it might be interesting to weather it and see what would result.  After removing as much of the clear finish as I could do easily I sprayed it with muriatic acid and hydrogen peroxide to get the oxidation started then hung it up outside where it has remained for about eight years.  Last year I put on a coat of satin lacquer and hung it on our back porch.

While Mother Nature couldn’t take care of my technical inadequacies, she did improve the colors which made the piece more interesting overall.  The appearance changes a lot depending upon the lighting variations.

Not wanting to be an outright thief of Robert Frost’s theme, I titled the piece “Choices.”  During the construction I had to make a lot of them.  Some turned out better than others.  Isn’t that the way life always works?

http://www.persimmonforge.com/

I Missed the ABANA Conference

The Reunion on the great plains, The ABANA 2012 Conference, was held at the Central States Fairgrounds in Rapid City, South Dakota July 18-21, 2012.  It’s the first one I missed since Asheville in 1998.

Fortunately some friends sent me images from their iPhones.  I found this link which may interest others who couldn’t attend and also those who did.  Check out Doug Wilson’s 2012 Conference images:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ironalchemy/sets/72157630643045158/

I was pleased that my friend, Rob Fertner, of CSMA won the contest and was chosen as the designer of the conference poster graphics.  I definitely will try to get to the next conference in 2014.  I’m telling myself it wasn’t so bad to miss this one because the heat wave temperatures were brutal.

http://www.persimmonforge.com/