metal is clay

Over Christmas 2021, I had a little moment and bought myself a gift: christinepedersen.art —a new web-site . I’ve been watching this project evolve for quite a while, and was thrilled to see that .art was offering an easy to use pop-up artist site builder ; I finished writing all the descriptions and up-loading my images yesterday. And so today I can relax, just a little, write a blog post… OK, back to work! All the not-actually-making-new-art-jobs truly take a huge amount of time. There's shooting photography and video  - then editing the photos and video (including new #shorts on Youtube), maintaining the written statements and documentation, and making social media posts...and if I’m lucky to write some show applications and send work out into the world, I might even have a rare chance to scrub up for an afternoon and share a glass of something nice with you in a gallery!   And I’m not complaining about any of it (even when I want to drop-kick my computer off a brid...

  Fire In The Belly. Wood-fired porcelain jar with sculptural metal crown, by Robin DuPont and Christine Pedersen. Height: 40 cm. “Fire In The Belly” —introducing @robindupontceramics and my piece for the Alberta Craft Council “Craft Collaborations” fund-raising auction. The auction is now open, with 38 artists presenting 31 unique new pieces 🎉 . I’ve been really looking forward to seeing what everyone else has been making—you can find the auction catalogue here . Robin’s wood-fired ceramic jar is coiled and pinched porcelain, with natural ash-glaze from pine, fir, oak, and black poplar ash. My sculptural metal crown is recycled brass and bronze, made by hammer-forming, raising, and repoussé, with hand-chased line-work. The metal is finished with oxidizing patina, heat patina, and wax.   Each piece in the auction has an artist statement, it’s really informative to hear other people’s experiences as they challenged themselves to develop a new idea, and use their skills to deve...

The Beaux Arts exhibition, curated by Angela Clarke at Il Centro Art Gallery, Vancouver, was developed with the Vancouver Metal Arts Association . The work of nineteen artists is included, and I am very honoured to be one of them. Huge thanks and kudos to the volunteer members of VMAA who have managed to organize and install a professional show under the current incredibly difficult conditions. To quote from Il Centro’s web-site : As the first exhibition in our Charles Marega 150 celebrations series Il Museo at Il Centro presents Beaux Arts: An Exhibition with the Vancouver Metal Arts Association. This exhibition features the sculptural metal art form both large and small. Entitled Beaux Arts in honour of the artist style of which Charles Marega was an interpreter, this juried show integrates traditional metal work with non-traditional styles and elements, true to the Beaux Arts form. Throughout the exhibition space there is a continuous juxtaposition of traditional and non- traditiona...

Making: A Career in Craft is now open at the Alberta Craft Gallery, Calgary, in cSpace (the former King Edward School). Show runs September 19 - November 7, 2020 Cory Barkman and I are showing a small Plum Blossom screen, and I have three new chased and repousséd flower pendant necklaces. See more images here . Artists have contributed background writing for the show, sharing aspects of what they have learned from a career dedicated to making their art and fine craft work. I found it a really interesting read, and a great way to connect with some artists that I do not know personally: Making: A Career in Craft Exhibition Guide Alberta Craft Council also have a fabulous Craft Collaborations exhibition running - unique pieces made by member artists working together, available via an on-line auction - see the artwork here The "Making" group exhibition first opened on February 1, 2020 in the Feature Gallery in Edmonton ...And then sadly had to shut down pretty much straightaway ...

On his facebook page , industrial artist Cory Barkman has been sharing the journey to design and create unique hand-made furniture and fittings for a contemporary Chinese tea-room. I am going to describe more about bringing the Chinese Plum Tree screen installation into bloom, as I have the slightly scary task of making the 500 chased and repousséd bronze flowers. Chased and repousséd bronze flowers - overlaid to create the feel of the finished Chinese Plum tree branch, loaded with spring blossom. Christine Pedersen. 2017. With so much work necessary to create all the pieces, Cory has faced a serious problem - how to find enough hours in his working life to make it all: "Sometimes jobs are bigger than ourselves, and the sheer volume of work needed is more than one person can feasibly or efficiently achieve on a good timeframe”.  Cory and I have worked on a previous major project - the “Return” tree sculpture for Alberta Beverage Container Recycling Corporation , wi...

Calgary Maker Faire Oct 28 and 29, 2017. Update: Caleb Kraft of Make Magazine shot this video from the LEXM booth * on October 29, starring Kat McLean and me doing all the talking. *Video: If you don't use Facebook, use this link to see lots of videos from Calgary, at makezine.com . To find LEXM, scroll down to video #13 - you will see Cam Farn's huge red-headed sculpture appear behind the presenter. Calgary Maker Faire was a lot of fun - hundreds of makers offering show and tell, and loads of hands on opportunities. Might sound crazy, but I think already know what work I want to show in the LEXM booth in 2018 :) Images: top row, L to R - Reinhold Pinter, Christine Pedersen, Cam Farn. Bottom row, L to R - Jeff de Boer, Cory Barkman. October 28/29, 2017: I will be demonstrating chasing and repoussé as part of the LEXM team of master makers and emerging artists. We will have an exhibition of one of a kind works, commission pieces (with thanks to our won...

This begins about 110 million years ago with the death of an 18-foot long armour-plated ‘lizard’, some time after it had enjoyed a large salad. Six years ago the fossilized animal re-surfaced at Alberta’s Suncor Millennium Mine, as an excavator dug down to recover the bituminous remains of prehistoric plants and animals in the tar-sands layer. The Royal Tyrrell Museum and National Geographic hail the dinosaur fossil as the finest specimen of its kind in the world—it is the best preserved, with armoured plates and even some skin tone visible. It is also the oldest dinosaur ever found in Alberta. As yet un-named nodosaur fossil. Photo: Kristi Van Kalleveen. #GroundsForDiscovery See the nodosaur fossil up close in this beautifully photographed essay from National Geographic , published in the June 2017 edition. All of the Grounds For Discovery exhibit fossils were accidentally discovered during mining and excavation work in Alberta. As the Tyrrell specimen fact sheet ...

“Twenty” was a complex piece to make real ; it started by sharing in a dream… What is the client imagining? What can they see and feel? And there it was in my hands, the finished piece: thick, lush, textured, a golden and hefty gem-set brass carabiner, with my thumb flicking that addictive gate-wire! The imagined carabiner had a haptic, emotional identity before material, or sketching. It came to life through our massively powerful human ability to transmit the idea of The Thing between us. Everyone’s a maker when they choose to spend a moment visualizing the thing made, finished, right there in front of them. It’s a delicious first step. And it sends the real-world maker off to find the right tools… And there’s the rub: the idea of the thing isn’t enough to make it real, because there’s still all the mess and details and skill of the making. That’s where the maker or artist chooses to fall into building the dream. This is the "making of" video for a commi...

Return tree sculpture is on show at the Core , TD Square, in downtown Calgary, from Jan 8 - 29, 2017 as part of their waste reduction month. Close-up on the hand holding the root-ball - the Return tree sculpture is approximately 12 feet tall overall. Return was commissioned by Alberta Depot in 2016. Designed and built by Cory Barkman , Christine Pedersen , and Jeff de Boer .

I am just starting out on a major new project. It will consume the next 6 weeks of my life. Immersed in the design stage, I already feel the pull of The Resolution, the conclusion of it all because I - we - can see the finished thing: there is a drawing, materials have been selected. The endless chatter from design and detail and process has started, and sleep is broken. PROJECT PICTURES ? EMBARGOED FOR NOW… T hat doesn’t matter, this is all about the emotions of making stuff, less about the stuff itself. There is a cute meme that floats about on social media, regarding the artist’s relationship with a piece of work over the course of making it. In short, feelings go nuts and change a LOT, and it’s OK to stop reading now. Or… Come on the journey.  I’m talking mainly about creating something new, possibly unknown to me , maybe completely out of my comfort zone—lots of different processes all needed at once, or maybe I just don’t yet have full mastery of a particular skil...

I will be riding off to Bluerock to join sculptor Kindrie Grove, painter Jennifer Mack, metal artist Simon Wroot, and equine jewellery maker Simone Schlichting to present “Meet The Herd!” at Bluerock Gallery in Black Diamond, Alberta. We will be presenting equine art and artist demos over the weekend of July 16 and 17, 2016. Full details here: http://bluerockgallery.ca/blogs/events/meet-the-herd-july-16-17-2016 I love making equine-inspired art but it is usually a fairly private obsession as I mainly create commissions in clay - I will have new clay horse pieces, and chased metal pictures available. There will also be new ceramic work for Bluerock - large porcelain platters, small vases and covered jars, some porcelain sculpture, and a few bright bowls to gladden hearts and tables. Pieces are all hand-built and finished by me at my home studio—it takes a long time to make and fire the work, and I am now starting to build an inventory of my favourite forms alongside my vases at ...

This post is about the making of Fluvius Visum , a hand-chased brass panel, and the process of dreaming up its narrative content. I like house-names, they have character. After a quick flirt with Google translate, our family house-name - River View - became the more house-age-appropriate Fluvius Visum . I enjoy the heft and assumed dignity of the (probably wrong) latin translation—it immediately felt more in keeping with the contemporary-medieval design style that I was about to invent as I drew the picture for this chasing study… Somehow the latin provided an anchor for a brass panel that would be laden with narrative and heraldic symbolism.   The form of personal coats of arms follows a strict code (1), and there is overlap with the common historical usage of symbols used to create town arms etc. My research to date suggests there is no undisputed go-to directory for the meanings of heraldic symbols (2), and symbols like “holly” or “horse” have likely acquired unofficia...

“Sorry it was so much bother” “Don’t worry about it, everything I do is bother!” I like to bother about stuff, that’s my day-job: dream, design, then make. Hundreds of small steps and details to bother about, on the way to something new. Along the way, I repair a lot of my own stuff. My friend and neighbour is a: “Please look after my dog” “Who wants cake and mojito’s?” - kind of neighbour. And he broke a favourite belt. It wasn’t expensive, but it is quite lovely: supple, dark Italian leather, with a cast buckle that delivered all the strain of bending over after a big dinner onto a tiny plate of who-knows-what cast metal that is - was - less than 1mm thick. Poor design. Why not just buy another belt? Maybe he should have—but it’s the principle… W e can mend things, and I could share a little happiness by drilling two holes and swinging a hammer to set 2 fat new rivets through a serious piece of scrap brass—that belt now has 5.7mm of quality metal to take the strain. A qui...

Jeff de Boer and his apprentice Dylan Puddu have been developing the Gearing collection for a while now, and in 2015, they finally invited me to start playing in the toy-box with them! I must have hinted loudly enough at how cool I think the Gearing components really are… We have lots of plans and new work to come, with one of a kind and stone-set pieces.  Please contact Jeff if you would like to know more. Armét-Haus Gearing components become cufflinks... Set with rhodolite garnets. Custom design by Christine Pedersen. Armét-Haus Gearing pendant: Jeff de Boer and Dylan Puddu. Avenue Magazine published a neat article on Jeff's studio and the (slightly over-whelming!) range of projects that he is working on at any one time :)

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...

First vlog posting ever -  it was a very fun day at Bluerock Gallery on Saturday Dec 5, lots of people, and lots of chasing on metal. Have to admit it was a bit intimidating wielding a hammer inside an art gallery... Thank you to gallery owner Karen Gimbel and the Bluerock team for the invitation to bust out of my studio for the day. Looking forward to next time!

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 l...

Canadian fine craft artists, the galleries, shops and studios where you can meet them, and the museums, art institutions and curators that shape our history - all working together in one place to show the world our work… Drool. The Citizen’s Of Craft web-site is open for business. And I’m all smiles - I spent many summer evenings happily camped in my basement editing pictures and loading them up to create my profile .  407 members and growing every time I visit, I think this could just be the best thing to happen to fine craft artists in Canada for a very long time. It’s a   h u g e  under-taking to create and maintain such a resource, so I’m feeling pretty confident about my very sweeping statement. It’s only been a week and 3 complete strangers have taken the time to share my profile on Facebook (and I didn’t even ask them to): thank you to my new friends, and I look forward to the many opportunities this new resource will create in our far-flung hands-on comm...

I always have a piece of scrap metal close by when I’m chasing—it’s a doodle pad, a way to warm up my hand and mind, rehearse a line before I commit to a piece. As I messed around with my holly design, I was also testing my fine liner tool around the border of the metal and modifying the tiny tip, learning about what might make it glide over the surface in the same delightful way that the larger tool does.  Doodling is always a lot of fun, and suddenly my holly-doodle had become the piece that I needed to obsess over for the next few days. “Rob’s Holly”. Chasing and repoussé. Oxidised aluminium. Christine Pedersen. 2014. All done. I feel like one of Santa’s elves: silence descends as I put down my chasing hammer and wander bleary-eyed from the workshop. It’s time to yield to the season, make some cookies, fill the log basket, and crack open a bottle…  Wishing you a wonderful 2015.  May your days be bright.

We might still ride horses to round up the cows, but running wild, feral horses are just a competitor for grass and water.  Surveil . Chased, repousséd, and oxidized aluminium panel in alder frame. 2014. Alberta has an estimated 880 feral horses (minimum, based on the annual count (1)), descended from animals brought in for mining and logging in the the early 1900’s, and turned loose when the operations folded. It isn’t surprising, therefore, that people are very attached to the horses as a symbol of the pioneer spirit. Ironically, it seems that feral horses in the developed world are under threat, their need for a share of natural resources scrutinized precisely because we no longer use them to aid our own survival.  Wild horses must constantly move to find grass and water to survive, and they inspire us because they survive. They need so little, even in such a harsh climate. We use other sources of energy to do our work now—because horses simply lack adequate hor...