obsessing in public

obsessive chasing desire: the process in which the metal artist yields to their need to strike one piece of metal with carefully shaped tools for a very, very, long time.

I will be doing a chasing metalwork demonstration at Bluerock Gallery in Black Diamond, Alberta, on Saturday December 5, 2015. I will have loads of samples - flat chased pictures, works in progress - and a very special holly sprig that I have been working on for over 90 hours…

Look forward to seeing you there.

“Run”. Brass portrait study. Chasing and repoussé. 14.5 x 9 x 3 cms. Christine Pedersen. 2014.

‘Chasing’ is the use of tools to create lines or texture marks on the surface of metal, it can be just like drawing. But the artwork can also be made into a three dimensional form by hitting and stretching the metal surface from behind—‘repoussé’—to sculpt relief, or volume, into the metal surface.

The Statue of Liberty is probably the most famous repousséd object in the world - it’s also an awful lot bigger than my work!

"Run"- this portrait study was made from brass sheet metal: it started out flat, 0.8mm thick. See more of my chasing work here.

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narrative jewellery: tales from the toolbox book launch

For every piece of jewellery I make there is a story. It can be simple, just a note on the “why?” that led to the forms and textures, or the feeling that I want to remember. Sometimes the single idea that could become a piece, conceived way before the act of making, can become so over-whelming that I need to write a whole new reality for the jewellery to exist within. That’s how it was for “Pull”, the first piece of jewellery in a body of work that became the ReFind Collection *. It caused me to look at materials in my home, especially the things that were routinely thrown away, very differently. It was like waking up to realize I just hadn’t been paying the right kind of attention to all the “stuff” in other areas of my life; realizing that maybe jewellery could be linked to something as obscure as industrial-scale food-processing and packaging—if I allowed my mind to receive the information, differently. I am very honoured that my necklace has been included in Mark Fenn’s new ...

will you...?

Artists write stories about their work all the time, and the greatest joy is when that story becomes important to another person. This project was about creating a piece of fan-art for a client (DP) based on their love of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter stories. DP approached Jeff de Boer because he needed to commission a very special golden snitch sculpture: the body would become an opening engagement ring-box. DP had a very special proposal in mind, and the snitch was to play a key part. Jeff and I do not usually make snitches. Jeff is a renowned metal artist and teacher, famous for creating armour for cats and mice , and collected world-wide. Jeff also has an ever-increasing body of large-scale public art projects (…with lots of news to come in 2016!). His web-site is a magical place, full of stories made real. I am an emerging metal and clay artist whom Jeff is mentoring - particularly in the skills of chasing and repoussé - and these skills were to be at the core of makin...

Artist talk on March 28, at North Mount Pleasant Art Centre, Calgary.

Excited to share I’ll be presenting an artist talk on March 28, 7pm, at North Mount Pleasant Art Centre, in Calgary. I started clay classes there in 1996, a year after I emigrated from England to Canada—it was that education and community that helped me develop the skills to set up my home studio. I’ll be diving into my process, doing some demos, and generally obsessing about all things clay (with a bit of metal sneaking in). Thank you to the Mount Pleasant Potters' Guild for the invitation--hope to see you there!

metal is clay

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