So, in order to understand my own rational for investigating wrought iron instead of, say, watchmaking, Guilloché, Japanese metalwork or any of the other fields I'm interested in, I have to unpack and examine what wrought iron means to me.
The first thing which comes to mind is a type of nostalgia for lack of a better term. These disciplines represent skills which have either fallen into disuse or have been replaced by machine lead manufacturing. The industrial revolution whilst vital in our progress as a species has left some very important values in it's wake. The equation of time equaling money has lead to people doing the absolute minimum to get the job done. With that rational, some bar stock welded into squares become our burglar bars and the beauty of a forged grill gets left out of the equation. Mass produced rings which have barely passed through skilled craftsman's hands are sold at more of a profit than individually crafted pieces of jewellery.
I am aware that our quality of life in general has improved since the industrial revolution, I know if cars were all hand made, very few people would be able to have them. What I am doing is romanticizing, ignore any bad and buff up the good. Sometimes you have to emphasize something, make it bigger and more clear in order to wake and awareness in the viewer. What I'm trying to do is give people a visual reminder that once we did not accept anything less than beautiful, even if the object was functional.
I've decided that I will couple each piece with a line or two of song lyrics or poetry, either engraved or etched into the piece or displayed along with the piece. Words are a powerful medium to invoke thoughts and feelings. They also lend clarity of intention, often it's the title of a piece which gives the biggest clue as to what the artist is getting at.
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