Tiaan Burger

Tiaan Burger is a South African knifemaker and artist. I had been following his work on facebook because of the mutual interest in knife making. Recently he has also started posting some traditional Japanese carving which he learnt much the same way as myself, through the Iron Brush forum and by contacting Ford Hallam. He was able to spend some time in Ford's workshop as well which is something I would dearly like to do.

I contacted Tiaan and was fortunate enough to be able to interview him when he was in Durban on holiday. I am very interested in Tiaan's work because he doesn't just take Japanese techniques and carve Japanese motifs but rather uses Japanese techniques to carve South African scenery, fauna and flora. In the interview I asked about this and he said he likes to imagine a Japanese craftsman growing up in South Africa. The Japanese used their surroundings as inspiration, so too should we.

Traditional Japanese techniques and materials applied to South African scenery and animals.

Gathering motifs from your surroundings

Translating that into the traditional form of a tsuba or Japanese sword guard

Botanical gardens

I took a stroll around Durban botanical gardens today. I was looking at textures and patterns found in nature. Particularly tree bark. I also took the chance to try out my new macro lens for my phone camera. It's really nifty and clips on with a magnet. Something I noticed with pictures from far and close of the same bark is that big texture is made from lots of small texture. This may seem obvious but it points the way towards successful texturing in carving. Take care on a micro scale and the macro scale will look good.

Moon through trees

The reason brushwork was so influential on metal work

The reason the tagane (chisels) are called the "iron brush" is carvings were closely related to ink paintings. This is not just some beautiful metaphor but as they were working in pre-photography times, ink paintings were the only common visual reference. Patrons would come in with a painting and want some part of that carved into a tzuba.

Reed beads

Whilst collecting rocks for my garden at the local stream, I was moving these dried reeds out the way when I suddenly saw that they were in fact the source of those grey beads used in traditional beading.

Intellectually, I was aware that they are seeds and come from some plant but I've not seen them in situ as it were.

I've gathered some up and may use them, although beading is not my current focus, sometimes we are given things to work with by accident. Or perhaps it's by design we can't see yet.

Repository of images: Modern ironwork

Here I'll post images of modern ironwork which I have taken. Some things to notice are that most I made from straight sections of hollow tubing, mostly square. No tapering, no twists, just accurate cutting and welding. Also thick layers of paint, no natural patina.

Repository of images: Cast iron

Here I'll keep images of cast ironwork I have taken myself from various places in Durban.