ORIGINAL ARTWORK IN RUST AND COPPER
using entirely found metal
The daughter of a Potter and Hand-weaver, I grew up immersed in Cornwall's thriving craft community in the 1980's. Steeped in a foundation of tradition and skills, my parents instilled in me a sense of vocational possibility by the example of their own practice. Fascinated by making and creating, I was introduced to the medium of metal aged eleven, immediately finding an affinity and love for metalworking. I quickly established myself as a maker even from this young age, creating ranges of precious metal jewellery to sell in galleries.
I left school aged sixteen and spent two years self-directing my studies, taking advantage of family connections to study under many local craftspeople. I also spent several months working in France on voluntary projects, most notably participating in an archaeological/restoration project in a silver mine in the French Alps. I was part of a small team of volunteers tasked with clearing silt from the network of medieval workings deep into the side of a mountain. I still look back and see this experience as a deeply affecting, pivotal moment in my understanding of the origins of metal and it's extraction, and the shear impact and scarring it incurs on the earth.
Aged eighteen, I experienced another such moment when I went to train as a jeweller at Birmingham School of Jewellery, where I was introduced to the craft of blacksmithing by forging jewellery making tools. It was a hugely exciting experience, and with the alchemical transformation of the fire on the steel, a new passion had been ignited. Following the completion of my Jewellery training, a path opened to me to go on to train as a traditional Blacksmith at The National School of Blacksmithing in Hereford. Afterwards I combined further training with travel and work placements around the UK, North America, Canada and France.
I returned to Cornwall in 2008 to set up my own forge, first in a farm outbuilding, then two years on in a beautiful old heritage smithy in the remote and overgrown post-industrial landscape of a disused Granite Quarry near Falmouth.
I spent several years creating large scale architectural ironwork to commission, alongside forging a range of interior hardware to sell at shows and in galleries. I also used my 'portable forge' to gain free pitches at local events where I would demonstrate blacksmithing and sell my work.
I co-founded The Cornish Blacksmiths Collective in 2012 (which became a Community Interest Company in 2023) to connect the smithing businesses in Cornwall and to provide a supportive network for professional, student and hobbyist smiths in our area. The Collective has grown over the years and we regularly come together at local events to promote the craft of Blacksmithing and to teach and demonstrate.
I left school aged sixteen and spent two years self-directing my studies, taking advantage of family connections to study under many local craftspeople. I also spent several months working in France on voluntary projects, most notably participating in an archaeological/restoration project in a silver mine in the French Alps. I was part of a small team of volunteers tasked with clearing silt from the network of medieval workings deep into the side of a mountain. I still look back and see this experience as a deeply affecting, pivotal moment in my understanding of the origins of metal and it's extraction, and the shear impact and scarring it incurs on the earth.
Aged eighteen, I experienced another such moment when I went to train as a jeweller at Birmingham School of Jewellery, where I was introduced to the craft of blacksmithing by forging jewellery making tools. It was a hugely exciting experience, and with the alchemical transformation of the fire on the steel, a new passion had been ignited. Following the completion of my Jewellery training, a path opened to me to go on to train as a traditional Blacksmith at The National School of Blacksmithing in Hereford. Afterwards I combined further training with travel and work placements around the UK, North America, Canada and France.
I returned to Cornwall in 2008 to set up my own forge, first in a farm outbuilding, then two years on in a beautiful old heritage smithy in the remote and overgrown post-industrial landscape of a disused Granite Quarry near Falmouth.
I spent several years creating large scale architectural ironwork to commission, alongside forging a range of interior hardware to sell at shows and in galleries. I also used my 'portable forge' to gain free pitches at local events where I would demonstrate blacksmithing and sell my work.
I co-founded The Cornish Blacksmiths Collective in 2012 (which became a Community Interest Company in 2023) to connect the smithing businesses in Cornwall and to provide a supportive network for professional, student and hobbyist smiths in our area. The Collective has grown over the years and we regularly come together at local events to promote the craft of Blacksmithing and to teach and demonstrate.
Meanwhile, my own practice became increasingly inspired by my immediate landscape. Walking from my door, I would collect fragments of metal from past industry and incorporate them into my work, reforging and shaping the found metal into new and usable objects. Amongst these remnants I would find broken, corrugated tin roofing sheets, once used to clad the quarry workings. These spoke to me of the Cornish landscape and I started to experiment flattening and then drawing onto the surface of the metal with charcoals to pull out the ghosts of what I could see, be it wall or sky or building. I layered and riveted the fragments together to create pictorial, collaged landscapes. When I entered one of these into an 'Emerging Artists' competition and won, I realized I had stumbled upon a unique idea. Thrown from the world of craft into the realm of Fine Art, I spent the next few years fully focused on the development of the technique and discovering my style.
During this time, I volunteered as a trustee of The Cornwall Crafts Association, helping to promote and support craftspeople in Cornwall. I also worked part time for four years teaching Blacksmithing and fine metalwork to degree students at Falmouth University. During my time there I used the word 'Artefact' as a theme and created a body of work made entirely from scrap metal and led by what metalworking skill my student wanted to learn that day. The Artefacts I now make emerge from found, recycled and scrap metals: bronze, copper, iron and silver. They explore common forms from the bronze and iron-ages such as the fibula brooch and torques, but always led by the found fragment. This time at the university helped me to pull these elements back into my practice in a way that ties together my jewellery and blacksmithing background with the more 'fine art' practice of my metal collage.
Hence my career as a metalworker has continued to evolve, merging, as creative practices tend to do, with my life and landscape until all feed into one another and the individual parts can no longer be disconnected.
Trevone Quarry – where I have lived and worked since 2010 – is a nature reserve and sustainable industrial estate providing a low impact model of working and living on the land with an emphasis on climate concern. The creative businesses here are managed by the tenants for the creation of habitat to increase biodiversity and soil health. A low carbon approach is encouraged: tenants operate a closed loop permaculture approach to all waste produced on site in the form of hot composting. They use salvaged and waste materials to renovate their workspaces, and 50% of travel to and from site is by electric bike. Under these principles, I have been striving to lower my environmental impact as much as possible in all areas of my life. In 2018, I decided to stop using coke and coal in my forge and explore charcoal as an alternative. This led to a fascinating journey of adapting my practice, and with funding from Falmouth University, I developed my design for a bellows powered charcoal forge that could be adopted by the professional and hobbyist blacksmith, hoping to drive change towards sustainability. I'm really pleased to find that it has captured the interest of not just the blacksmithing community but the wider craft community too, and look forward to taking the project further.
During this time, I volunteered as a trustee of The Cornwall Crafts Association, helping to promote and support craftspeople in Cornwall. I also worked part time for four years teaching Blacksmithing and fine metalwork to degree students at Falmouth University. During my time there I used the word 'Artefact' as a theme and created a body of work made entirely from scrap metal and led by what metalworking skill my student wanted to learn that day. The Artefacts I now make emerge from found, recycled and scrap metals: bronze, copper, iron and silver. They explore common forms from the bronze and iron-ages such as the fibula brooch and torques, but always led by the found fragment. This time at the university helped me to pull these elements back into my practice in a way that ties together my jewellery and blacksmithing background with the more 'fine art' practice of my metal collage.
Hence my career as a metalworker has continued to evolve, merging, as creative practices tend to do, with my life and landscape until all feed into one another and the individual parts can no longer be disconnected.
Trevone Quarry – where I have lived and worked since 2010 – is a nature reserve and sustainable industrial estate providing a low impact model of working and living on the land with an emphasis on climate concern. The creative businesses here are managed by the tenants for the creation of habitat to increase biodiversity and soil health. A low carbon approach is encouraged: tenants operate a closed loop permaculture approach to all waste produced on site in the form of hot composting. They use salvaged and waste materials to renovate their workspaces, and 50% of travel to and from site is by electric bike. Under these principles, I have been striving to lower my environmental impact as much as possible in all areas of my life. In 2018, I decided to stop using coke and coal in my forge and explore charcoal as an alternative. This led to a fascinating journey of adapting my practice, and with funding from Falmouth University, I developed my design for a bellows powered charcoal forge that could be adopted by the professional and hobbyist blacksmith, hoping to drive change towards sustainability. I'm really pleased to find that it has captured the interest of not just the blacksmithing community but the wider craft community too, and look forward to taking the project further.
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Combining skills from both jewellery and blacksmithing traditions she forges, forms and layers sheet metal in to a unique form of collage wall art and conjures ancient seeming artefacts - tools and adornment out of fragments of found metal from past industry. |
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© Lisa Wisdom 2024
