Here is the first book that focuses on unique custom-made fireplace accessories as works of art by talented modern artist blacksmiths. Over 400 ideas for unusual fireplace designs reflect historical styles from Renaissance to Post-Modern. You will be amazed at the infinite effects that can be wrought from a bar of metal between the hammers and anvils of more than 100 master artist blacksmiths from nine countries. You'll learn to appreciate the forms that are used, from scrolls to carved animals, and to recognize their texturing, unusual handles and hinges, supports, and more. Fire screens, hoods, doors, andirons, grates, tongs, pokers, shovels, brooms, and their stands emerge as significant decorative items in today's homes. This is also a wonderful sourcebook for homeowners and designers seeking original art for their homes. You will marvel at the artistry, variety, and craftsmanship.

In the 1930s sculptors began to heat and shape metal directly and a new type of sculpture and artist emerged. This revised and expanded edition retains all the techniques and inspiration to help artists find the answers they needed for creating direct metal sculpture. New chapters update its history over the past quarter century. One new chapter explains the impact public art programs are having on culture in our cities. There are also sections on the impact of the computer on design and marketing of art. This is the latest, most complete, and practical book about an art form destined to become increasingly popular. Over 475 illustrations offer ideas, inspiration, techniques, and finished examples of art. This book is a must own for artists, craftsmen, collectors, designers, gallery owners, museum curators, and everyone interested in metal sculpture. Historical examples show where the art has been, where it is, and who is doing it.

Here is an exceptional insight into the unique ironwork created by today's artist-blacksmiths. Over 250 color photographs display details of contemporary iron objects, including flowers, grape clusters, leaves, small and large animals that attest to the blacksmith's role as a sculptor. There are amazing scrolls, folds, twists, textures, and weaves not normally associated with the hard material. With heat, hammer, talent, and muscle, the modern artist-blacksmith is forging exciting forms that permeate our surroundings. The casual viewer may often overlook details of small elements used to create a magnificent whole. Dona Z. Meilach shows how focusing on the iron details of flowers, leaves, and amazing critters makes ordinary fences, gates, and chandeliers extraordinary. Functional joints become beautiful elements for furniture, fireplace accessories, candlestick holders, and other iron items we use daily. Dona's approach will open one's eyes to "see" and respect this burgeoning art form. This stimulating book is a must for metalworkers, designers, artists, gallery owners, art lovers, and museum directors.

There is currently a revival in the art of stone sculpture-along contemporary lines-of the Golden Age in Greece and the Renaissance in Europe. Many noted twentieth-century sculptors are now working directly in stone. This book explains how to create modern stone sculpture, with hundreds of examples by today's top sculptors. Included are sculptures by Jean Arp, Constantin Brancusi, Max Bill, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, and many others, illustrated and explained with hundreds of clearly detailed photographs. This is also a how-to book, giving specific, step-by-step instructions for creating stone sculpture; describing various types of stone, how to select and transport it; telling how to carve the stone with hand tools and electric or pneumatic power tools; and providing the methods of finishing the work. Contemporary Stone Sculpture is important for the inspiration of art collectors and working artists alike.

This important new book tackles the burgeoning revival of the blacksmith's art. Author Dona Meilach has brought together over 500 works by nearly 200 artist-craftsmen from sixteen countries to illustrate the unprecedented activity in modern ironwork that has led to its blossoming into a serious art form. You'll learn several techniques using hot and cold forming with the results clearly shown. You'll be able to recognize how a fence, railing, grille, table, chair, knife, and other items evolve, and better appreciate their design and workmanship. Each chapter provides background for the type of objects shown-- architectural ironwork, sculpture, furniture, containers and vessels, lighting fixtures and candleholders, fireplace accessories, wind vanes, household and liturgical items, and the incredible knives made of Damascus steel. You'll find ample information for how and where to begin your own study in this extensive resource list of organizations, Internet sources, publications, museums, and educational opportunities. The Contemporary Blacksmith** undoubtedly should be found in the libraries of every metalworker, art educator, architect, interior designer, ironwares collector, and crafts person.

Here is an exciting foray into the world of the artist-blacksmith. Dona Z. Meilach discovers the growing numbers of men and women who revel in lighting up a forge and shaping hot, malleable iron into beautiful, useful objects. Blacksmiths today make both monumental and modest architectural accompaniments, from public art to an infinite number of items we encounter every day. With this book, you will gain an appreciation of the medium and its creators, and realize that blacksmiths do much more than shoe horses. Over 480 color photographs highlight objects for indoor and outdoor use, including fences, railings, gates, doors, sculpture, furniture, lighting fixtures, candleholders, and more. Some are truly modern in style while others are inspired by historical references, such as Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Craftsman, and Victorian styles. Today's blacksmiths, designers, artists, and homeowners will find unparalleded inspiration for creating unique yet practical surroundings.

Dive into tantalizing, eye-catching objects dubbed teapots, but be warned, serving tea is not necessarily their purpose. Though many artists are making functional, traditional teapots; other artistic adventurers are brewing up whimsical sculpture. Explore unique designs and materials. With the usual image of a ceramic or silver teapot in one's minds eye, how do you confront a teapot made with holes around the body? Or one made of woven fabrics, of silk with lace and buttons, wood, and coins? You do so with tongue in cheek and an intellectual, fine art sensibility. Dona Z. Meilach tackles the burgeoning activity of teapot making and collecting with over 450 dazzling color images of teapots from 227 artists in fourteen countries. She begins with a short history of why teapots evolved as late as the 1500s, when tea had already been consumed for generations. She introduces artists and talks about collectors, what they buy, where to buy, and ideas for displaying collections. And she plumbs her vast knowledge of artist's techniques and materials and produces an electrifying compilation that will keep you turning pages and coming back again and again. With teapot collecting escalating so rapidly, this book is a must for private and corporate collectors, decorators, and museum curators to learn who is doing what, where, how, and why.

With the help of this unique book, all the fascinating properties of iron and other metals can be creatively explored. 52 color plates and 717 b/w photos and drawings present the ideas and examples visually. After a short history of ironwork, the author discusses the ironworking shop, forge and tools, including anvils, vises, hammers, tongs, punches, centrifugal blowers and machine tools. She presents information on building, lighting, and maintaining a fire. Forging procedures are explicitly shown: drawing out, flattening, bending, upsetting, twisting, splitting, punching and drifting, hot cutting on a hardy, and joining and finishing techniques.

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