Our Mission

Metals Guild hopes to bring a more tangible and interactive art experience to the CFCC student community, a goal achieved by enrichment opportunities outside the scope of the Metals classroom, and extending the metal working experience from the confines of the classroom to our local community. Metals Guild will encourage members to participate in fundraising and community outreach events such as demonstrations and hands on short workshops. These events will be empowering to its members and spread enthusiasm for craftsmanship, as well as bring an awareness to the art of metalsmithing to aspiring and active participants in the community.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Ken Bova's Visit to CFCC

We here at CFCC were SO lucky to have nationally renowned metalsmith Ken Bova come down from ECU to give us a day workshop! Ken demonstrated making your own tools and especially making riveting hammer's from nails and chopsticks! He had all sorts of tricks up his sleeves. We all learned so much and were really enthralled. I think everyone agreed we could listen to Ken lecture for hours! Ken will be back in the Spring semester and we will try to get the school to let us use the room for two days.

Take a look at some of Ken's handmade tools!



Friday, September 23, 2011

Chopstick Hammers with Ken Bova

Metalsmith and professor Ken Bova has offered to come do a workshop for us! He will show us how to make chopstick hammers and various other tricks. I am ironing out details right now. It will be a Saturday from 10-5pm. We will break midday for lunch.
Stay tuned!



Friday, September 16, 2011

The Way Things Go

When I first met Keith Lo Bue in 1999 he showed me this movie. I LOVED it! It is an art film made in 1987 by Fischli and Weiss a team of Swiss artists. In the spirit of Rube Goldberg it encompasses "100 feet of physical interactions, chemical reactions, and precisely crafted chaos" Originally 29 minutes and 45 seconds, here are 3 minutes out of it.

Arthur Ganson

While I'm on a kinetic kick, meet Arthur Ganson



















This is a TED talk with Arthur that should be VERY inspiring! REALLY you gotta check this out!

Theo Jansen

Another favorite! Theo Jansen


















You may be familiar with this BMW ad featuring Theo Jansen's work:






This is an 8 minute long talk on TED with Theo Jansen AMAZING!

Jean Tinguely

This is one of my favorite scupltors, Jean Tinguely















And these are some of his works. They are usually kinetic in some way and are almost always whimsical and curious!



















This is a water sculpture of his in Basel Switzerland:

Steampunked House!

Yes this is an awesome webpage The Steampunk Workshop and this issue


they visit a steampunked house! Thank you Don (and Daxx) for the link.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Carrot Box

If you're obsessed with rings then check out the Carrot Box COOL!
This ring is by "Drophius", Lorenzo Pepe is the designer behind Drophius. From his website: "Formentera (in Italy) has been his home since 1997. In 2000 he started making jewelery, whose style -- far removed from passing trends -- is based on a formal, graphic study of the harmonies found in nature, particularly sea organisms, their structures, textures and symmetries. In his pieces he seeks an elemental, primordial elegance that make them timeless."

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Metals 2 Fall 2011

Yes! its true there is a Metals 2 class for Fall 2011 on Tues/Thurs 2-4:50!
Sign up NOW!

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Chopstick Hammers

Mary's gonna show us chopstick hammers that she made in Ken Bova's class.
Wednesday the 18th 2pm my place. Email me for more info! bring a chopstick.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Ray's Logo Design


Ray Wishnask has submitted this excellent design for a logo. We'll have a tough decision ahead of us! Many have mentioned maybe finding a way to use all the deisgns on shirts, buttons, banners, etc.

Don's T-shirt Design


oh yeah!
This one would stencil most excellently!

Orange St. Arts Fest


We are now an official club! Yay!

Also, we have an opportunity to have a booth at Orange St Artsfest near the end of May. The festival only allows one artist/one booth. So as a favor to us they are letting us participate, provided we each spend some volunteer time helping the festival- spelling artists in their booths, handing out pamphlets, watching the donation jars, etc. So while we each will want to spend time at our booth we need to sign up to spend festival time too. It is two days and all participants will contribute $10 to cover the booth fee. Any extra will go into a "New Bench Sander Fund" which is already seeded with scrap copper monies of $33. For your $10 you may join us, sell your work and help us do demonstrations for the public. I think it'll be a BLAST!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Metals Guild Logo? part 2


Here's Scott Schroder's logo idea!

Metals Guild Logo?


We have suggested that folks come up with logo ideas for our fledgling club. Kayla Peterson and Scott Schroder stepped up to the plate! Here's Kayla's design (I'll try to get Scott's up tonight).Cool, huh!?

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Unveiling


Look at this nice group!
Aren't we lucky that CFCC has Metals classes?

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Wednesday!


So our Wednesday meeting was a rousing success and it was voted that since so many can make it at that time that our regular business meetings will continue in that day/time slot. So our meetings this semester will be every two weeks on Wednesday at 2pm. While I know this won't be convenient for many of you, FEAR NOT! We will have plenty of activities going on at other times/days. So we want your participation when you can...

Also other business:
We went ahead and elected our officers. Had there been multiple candidates we would have had further voting on Thursday of this week. but since we had only one candidate per office we elected them:

President- Alan Wawruck
Vice President- Aleah Smith
Treasurer- Ray Wishnask
Secretary- Ashley Roderick

Yay!
So we'll meet tomorrow (Thursday) at 5 since I already called that meeting (I can fill you in on any details you missed).

Logo Contest!
We will be voting on a logo for our club. This will just be a simple emblem that we can put on things; T shirts banners when we have sales, etc. If you'd like to submit a logo
Please do so by, hm.... Friday February 25th??? If we need to extend it we will but for now lets get this ball rolling! I will award a new blue metal handled dead blow hammer donated by Contenti to the winning design. I will get them posted somewhere, hopefully here so we can all vote. (I can do it as a poll I think)

Next- Azalea Festival!
Club members want to sell stuff as a group during Azalea Festival. We may be able to apply for a booth from CFCC we'll see. If not, there may be other places to purchase a table/boothspace. Be making stuff to sell! A portion of all sales, to be determined, will go back into the club coffers.
If AF doesn't happen in time Starway Fleamarket was mentioned. I'm not a big fan of this idea (concerned about the club's artistic integrity) but it's your club and I'll go with whatever is decided. There may be other venues as well. (I personally think money should be invested in nice acrylic, or faux leather display pieces from Rio Grande but hey, that's me).

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Ca RAZy!

I'd seen this woman's work in books, Miel-Margarita Paredes, but Don Perkins sent me to her site. It was a "Nun-UH! get OUT" moment!
View more of her Helmets here.














I'm REALLY diggin' this piece entitled "Gnaw".... appears enameled, repousse'd, & chased.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Raising a Copper Vessel, Start by Sinking

The Art Of Chasing And Repousse On Copper

Texture!

I say this all the time but...
WOW! texture!
Supposedly, there are 2500 nerve receptors per square centimeter in the human hand. Whether or not this is indeed true hardly matters. We realize that our fingers can tell us enough to survive without eyes. This we know. So with so much texture in the world around us why would we not be wow'ed by texture? We are usually enticed to touch it when we encounter it.
And we as 3D artists are so lucky! We do not have to rely on tricks to create the illusion of texture. We can have actual physical texture in our work. Why not celebrate it? Seek it? Create it?
SO with that in mind I share with you a detail of the Fabuloso texture on Thomas Poston's star fold from the morning T/TH class this week.
For non-stop amazing, textural art, check out ArtPropelled

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Community Outreach














Ideas for some CFCCMG community outreach projects:

How about doing very basic stamped copper charms with
the Community Boys and Girls Club one afternoon?
And possibly the same thing with DREAMS of Wilmington?
And/or making a collaborative charm bracelet for an auction for a cause?
Maybe someone could spearhead the outreach/educational programs?
I think you all have a FABULOUS opportunity to open people's minds to working with their hands.
Any other thoughts?

Fundraisers


Fundraising! We'll have to do some, but I think this could be a multi-layered experience for everyone. As metalsmiths we produce tangible goods, that people can readily see value in. So we are at an advantage! We could have demonstrations in conjunction with sales of your work. I am picturing a fold forming demo where we drag the tree stump into the courtyard and we show fold forming for a couple of hours. Off to the side is a table with fold formed earrings for sale. the demo draws folks in and then they HAVE to buy some won't they! right? right? eh! whaddya think?
I have to find out specifically what's kosher with CFCC as far as fundraising and the propane torch too. Also, we will have to purchase copper from Craft American so we are not using class supplies. But a 12"x12" piece is $10 and would produce a fair number of earrings. Just a thought....
Any other ideas?

Metals Guild!

So CFCC now has a Metals Guild! The name was decided on tonight. While other very cool fun names were bandied about We arrived at Metals Guild for the official name and then we'll express creativity on our buttons and t shirts.

Some suggestions have been:

Hammerin' Horde
Metal Mob
Metal Menagerie
Metal Syndicate
and finally
Vulcan's Vixens for the ladies...

fun was had by all.