hansonarts

Photos...

2011-02-14T16:12:00.000-08:00

My nature is to want to do things for myself as opposed to hiring the work done. I've tried to get some decent photos of my work but discovered that I don't have what is needed to get the quality of photos I want so now I'm having my best work photographed by a professional. Last week I took seven pieces to a friend who happens to take photos for a living. And the results are well worth it. Give the credit to Doreen Wynja for making my work look good.

The piece on the left is seventeen inches tall.

January 2011 new work

2011-01-13T15:57:00.000-08:00

I've managed to create a few new pieces lately, in spite of my nagging wrist pains and my torn rotator cuff which have slowed my production down considerably. I just finished up a large asymmetrical vase that stands about 20 inches high and is about a foot wide that I necked down to an inch and a half. The neck area was starting to crack all over so I abandoned my plan to try to neck it down to less than an inch. It still needs a patina as do three of four other smaller pieces that I've finished with the hammering. I'm mostly using my newest hammer, which was made by a gifted blacksmith in Portland. It's made from tool steel and doesn't deform from impact. But I have also realized that I have a need for more variety of hammers, smaller, narrower, etc., so I am looking into ordering a few more. I'll post pictures after I get patinas on the newest pieces.

Art Harvest Studio Tour - October 2010

2010-06-06T16:42:00.000-07:00

I've scaled back the number of shows I'm doing yearly... for the past few years I have been doing between three and five shows each year but now with the physical restraints of a partially torn rotator cuff in my shoulder and a pulled Achilles tendon, I need to limit what I do. So all the body abuse is produced by hammering which is the productive time. With entry costs, the time spent packing art and display materials, driving to the show, unpacking and setting up, then spending a day or two in the booth before tearing down and driving home, it all added up to a bunch of work. Sometimes I made enough sales to cover the show costs and earn some profit, but often I have barely done that. But the Art Harvest Studio Tour is different. I don't have to pack up anything, go anywhere, or pay anybody but myself. The people come to see my art and where I produce it. They see where my inspiration comes from. These people are interested and curious about art and make an effort to go see the artists because they appreciate the process and context that creates the art as much as the art itself. These are the people I want to show my work to. And these people also are often interested in acquiring a piece my work. The Art Harvest Studio Tour has been very good for my sales, last year it did better then all the other shows I did combined. So that's why I'm concentrating on just producing work... so I will have plenty of inventory for those first two weekends in October. I'm actually looking forward to it.

New brass pieces - 2010

2010-05-18T19:32:00.000-07:00

Somewhere I acquired some heavy brass sheets that I have used to raise a series of three large pieces.

Newest work - 2010

2010-05-18T19:05:00.000-07:00

What I've noticed is that my skills increase proportional to the time I put into hammering. I recently took a workshop from the master metalsmith, Greg Wilbur, who was my initial inspiration over twenty years ago. I acquired a new hammer at the workshop, hand forged from alloy steel by Arkon Kartmazov, a Russian born blacksmith who is a good friend of Greg's. This hammer is Arkon's own design, inspired by the raising hammers he saw while he was in Japan studying with Japanese metalsmiths. This new hammer is much more aggressive than the hammers I've been using, allowing me to raise metal much faster. My aesthetic sense has also been improving, resulting in more pleasing forms.

2009-04-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

New images of my recent and not so recent work. Photos by Marilyn Affolter

2009 and still hammering...

2009-03-16T20:48:00.000-07:00

I'm continually developing my skills which is helping me to be able to actually create the form I've envisioned in my mind. I've experimented with some different surface finishes and certain forms are repeatedly showing up and becoming refined. I've created my first full torso in the round entirely raised over stakes. That was a milestone for me as I remember telling someone a couple of years ago who asked if I could make one that I wouldn't have a clue how to start.

Recent work, December 2008

2009-01-02T20:02:00.000-08:00

I find that the act of hammering repetitively along with careful attention and observation to the results of those tens of thousands of hammer blows improves my skills. They say practice makes perfect, I would say practice makes you better, more practice makes you better yet, and so on. I've been hammering copper for about three years now, and I don't see any flattening of the learning curve, but I'm making things now I never would have imagined possible a year and a half ago.

Raising a torso

2008-06-18T11:41:00.001-07:00

The torso in the photo is formed from a single piece of sheet copper, there is no seam. It is hollow with the opening at the bottom edge. It stands about eight inches high. This piece was a milestone in my effort learning to raise copper. It represents how far I've come in three years. I had the foresight to take pictures at each cycle of hammering and heating. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to have extra batteries for my camera and so the series only shows the top half of the torso being formed.

hammering hanson

2008-06-13T14:12:00.000-07:00

I've been hammering all my life but only recently began hammering copper. Initially the things I created were simple in form and symmetrical, like bowls and rectangular trays. As I slowly learned what the hammer can do when working copper over an anvil or stake, I began to make more challenging forms.