Bee door knobs –
When Martin Pierce first became fascinated by bees when he saw a black bee or carpenter bee while traveling in Greece. Years later, he relocated to Los Angeles from England and was pleasantly surprised to find that the carpenter bee abounds in his urban back yard. Bees in general are not fast fliers, but the carpenter bee almost ambles along at a drowsy pace. Their speed no doubt befits their task of finding wood in which to burrow and form a nest for its young. Martin Pierce is also a wood sculptor and furniture maker so when the bees happen into his workshop looking for a nest it almost seems unfair not to yield up a log of walnut to their cause. However, as an objective observer and lover of nature he resists this desire and shoes them outside to the avocado tree, a much more suitable location.
Having seen these charming creatures over several years he decided to magnify their beauty and sculpt them to make decorative door knobs. While the carpenter bee does not create a honey comb, Martin felt it was a good use of his artistic license to pretend that it does and so he used this concept as his inspiration for a door rose to mount the bee on.
The bee knob and honey comb rose are cast in investment grade silicon bronze in the lost wax method. The bee is part of the Netsuke series, so named because each piece has no undercuts and curls into itself very much like the Japanese toggle that it is named after.
A version of this blog was published on our pilot blog both are by Anne Pierce.
In: Uncategorized · Tagged with: door knob
Links to Friends updated Jan 2010
We have been asked by friends to provide links to websites and resources we find useful so here they are together with a brief description of who they are. We will hopefully be adding more sites as we rack our brains but these are the ones we can think of now.
A really good group of knowledgeable and helpful people who will help with your Internet and social media marketing tasks and who have the expertise to create and successfully launch videos and articles across the web.
www.beautifulkitchens.wordpress.com
Great blog and helps me stay in touch with kitchen trends and new styles both for England and Europe. Where else would you read about Marmite jars?
Definitely the most skilled fabricator of custom stone fireplaces and flooring in the Los Angeles area. They have a gorgeous showroom and really knowledgeable staff.
Patina artist and sculptor with a remarkably good eye for detail and color. Erin Barrett has worked with us in developing patinas for our hardware and she is great resource for artists seeking to patina their sculptures or for designers in need of a talented person for on site patina work.
This is a great site and one of the easiest sites if you are trying to buy a home in California. The site offers a complete monthly housing guide to new homes in California and they have maps to help you find the home you have always dreamed of.
Is a design resource directory which focuses on premium home design products. For Martin Pierce it is a good site for getting the word out to the design community about our very unique hardware and furniture products. For others it is just a good site to browse when looking for an interesting item to decorate the home.
Web and print design but with a difference, Bob Pierce listens to what you want and delivers it in a timely manner. He is our graphic designer who laid out our hardware catalogue and oversaw it’s printing in Wales, UK. He is also our web designer and web consultant whose advise and common sense we seek on an almost daily basis, poor Bob.
We have trusted Jackie with our 2 Vizsla dogs for years. She is caring, dependable and the next best thing to a family member or should I say better than your typical family member! The dogs adore her and she is also a trusted house sitter.
So much has been written about Jane Goodall that I wouldn’t know where to begin adding to this rich commentary but rather suggest that you go directly to her site to understand how Jane Goodall and her organization are helping empower communities so that they have the means to successfully co-exist with chimpanzees.
Los Angeles/Glendale complete stringed instrument and sheet music store. This is a one of kind place where you can rent a viola, violin, cello buy the music and learn to play it. The store is host to Herman Markossian who is Anne Pierce’s viola teacher and to Ginger Murphy who patiently teaches Martin Pierce to play cello. A great resource for families with children wanting to learn an instrument and for adult students.
Los Angeles composer and jazz guitarist who has performed at LACMA on their Friday night jazz scene and who regularly plays at the RedWhite + Bluezz in Pasadena. and at Hal’s Bar and Grill in Venice, CA. Greg is a great find, his music was our first successful introduction to jazz and it works for us because it is beautifully melodic with great harmonies, his work is available on CD. Go check him out.
We have lived in LA a couple of decades so love really good quality Mexican food. This is where we go for lunch, their food is always fresh, tasty and affordable. They are also great at catering events and are the focal cuisine for our Christmas party. Check out the flautas.
New York based assignment photographer who photographed our new Morphic series and who has the ability and artistry for shooting our contemporary steel work on location in New York.
Helping nature heal cities is how they describe themselves but that doesn’t begin to say how involved they are in a really practical way in getting local communities to plant and nurture tees to beautify their neighborhood as well as provide much needed shade. They have an amazing campus or Yurt Village where you can attend workshops about tree planting, tree pruning and learn about becoming a tree leader.
Los Angeles studio photographer who has the patience needed to shoot both our hardware and furniture work and who is now beginning a second career as a wonderful creator of photographic art. His work can be seen “Affaire in the Gardens” Beverly Hills Art Show Oct 17th and 18th 2009. Well worth attending.
He makes stone sculpture and sculptural Waterfalls. Yoshi’s work is both exciting and calming a rare combination. He has a gift for understanding scale and balance as well as an appreciation for plants and dogs!
If you are looking for a stone sculpture either as a designer or as a home owner you need to visit his web site.
AUTHOR OF THIS BLOG
Anne Pierce
Shell Casting optimal method for casting art
Shell casting is a method of casting that has been used for centuries and that is also often referred to as the lost wax method. It is seen by many artists as perhaps the optimal method of casting as it allows the artist to create great detail and definition in a piece. By comparison, sand casting, which occurs where an object is placed into sand to create an impression, while often a more cost effective means of casting, would not allow Martin Pierce to create deep extremely fine definition that he achieves on the veins of his sycamore leaf cabinet knob or on the swirling leaves of his willow cabinet pull.
All of Martin Pierce’s kitchen cabinet pulls and drawer pulls as well as his entry way door handles and passageway door levers are created using this process.
In shell casting the wax replica is dipped in slip, which is a clay like slurry, which offers a good medium that can easily pick up the fine detail of the wax replica.
Leaves abound in the hardware designs that are available from Martin Pierce and they include leaves from willow pear and sycamore trees and bamboo plants. All of the leaves while stylized are representational and extremely detailed. The leaves are often made more life like by the clever use of colored hot patinas that are used to render the leaves a beautiful autumnal amber. Written by Anne Pierce.
In: Uncategorized · Tagged with: bamboo cabinet handles, cabinet pull, entry way door handle, grapevine door handles, kitchen cabinet pulls, passageway door levers, willow cabinet pull
Custom door handles they are really original
The custom door handles and custom cabinet knobs designed and made by Martin Pierce are not so much custom as they are original and organic in design. The term “custom” is a strange one as it seems to denote a decorative door handle or kitchen cabinet knob that is customized to suit the home owner or design who is ordering the piece and this is where the confusion stems from. While Martin Pierce can and does create custom door handles for individual projects he is only able to do so where the scale of the project makes this financially viable and where the design is one that he creates as an extension of his existing designs. So, for example his Hedgerow tree door handle and soap dish have been adapted to make a door stop and a decorative door bolt.
The term custom door handle does however well describe how each piece of functional art hardware is literally made to order. When any of his decorative knobs are ordered each piece will be made first in wax and then it will be shelled before being cast in bronze.
Martin Pierce does keep a fair amount of stock on many of his decorative cabinet pulls and this helps him keep his lead time reasonable.
Anne Pierce
In: Uncategorized · Tagged with: decorative cabinet pull
Bathroom Accessories – the finishing touch
No door hardware style would be complete without the finishing touches provided by towel rails, soap dishes and the much needed toilet roll holder. With this is mind Martin Pierce has extended his Hedgerow, Willow, Ergo and Morphic distinctive styles of door handles and cabinet knobs so that they now include these bathroom necessities.
As is true of all of Martin Pierce’s designs he begins by tackling the artistic design first and then moves on to modifying the form so that it will work for a specific function.
So for example in his Hedgerow style Martin began by focusing on his design for a tree canopy and once he achieved a realistic but stylized canopy he then addressed the problem of how to modify the design so that it could support either a towel rail or soap dish. It was important to Martin that the design not look contrived but organic and natural so when making a second tree canopy for the end of the towel rail he designed a complimentary but not symmetrical counterpart. As Martin points out “while there is balance in nature what give makes nature wonderful is the asymmetry of plant forms”.
MorphicTowelRail-thumb
With each style Martin has developed what is essential to that style and taken it into the bathroom so that each hardware series can be used from statement sculptures on the front door through to finish details of the bathroom. In short he scales each design within a line so that it fits the application so the front door is where the drama is greatest. However, while the scale is adjusted to the application his focus on amazing detail and beauty is never toned down and it is often the smaller cabinet knobs and soap dishes which give the home owner the greatest visual reward as they are seen more often.
How does Martin Pierce define the essence of these styles. Well you will have to read a little further to find the answer.
Author
Anne Pierce
href=”http://www.missionwest.biz/”>www.customhardware.netwww.hutterwholesale.com
HedgerowTowelRail
In: Bathroom accessories, Door hardware · Tagged with: cabinet knobs, door handles, Ergo, Hedgerow, Morphic, soap dishes, towel rails, Willow
LINK TO FRIENDS
We have been asked by friends to provide links to websites and resources we find useful so here they are together with a brief description of who they are. We will hopefully be adding more sites as we rack our brains but these are the ones we can think off now.
A really good group of knowledgeable and helpful people who will help with your Internet and social media marketing tasks and who have the expertise to create and successfully launch videos and articles across the web.
Patina artist and sculptor with a remarkably good eye for detail and color. Erin Barrett has worked with us in developing patinas for our hardware and she is great resource for artists seeking to patina their sculptures or for designers in need of a talented person for on site patina work.
This is a great site and one of the easiest sites if you are trying to buy a home in California. The site offers a complete monthly housing guide to new homes in California and they have maps to help you find the home you have always dreamed of.
Is a design resource directory which focuses on premium home design products. For Martin Pierce it is a good site for getting the word out to the design community about our very unique hardware and furniture products. For others it is just a good site to browse when looking for an interesting item to decorate the home.
Web and print design but with a difference, Bob Pierce listens to what you want and delivers it in a timely manner. He is our graphic designer who laid out our hardware catalogue and oversaw it’s printing in Wales, UK. He is also our web designer and web consultant whose advise and common sense we seek on an almost daily basis, poor Bob.
So much has been written about Jane Goodall that I wouldn’t know where to begin adding to this rich commentary but rather suggest that you go directly to her site to understand how Jane Goodall and her organization are helping empower communities so that they have the means to successfully co-exist with chimpanzees.
Los Angeles/Glendale complete stringed instrument and sheet music store. This is a one of kind place where you can rent a viola, violin, cello buy the music and learn to play it. The store is host to Herman Markossian who is Anne Pierce’s viola teacher and to Ginger Murphy who patiently teaches Martin Pierce to play cello. A great resource for families with children wanting to learn an instrument and for adult students.
Los Angeles composer and jazz guitarist who has performed at LACMA on their Friday night jazz scene and who regularly plays at the RedWhite + Bluezz in Pasadena. and at Hal’s Bar and Grill in Venice, CA. Greg is a great find, his music was our first successful introduction to jazz and it works for us because it is beautifully melodic with great harmonies, his work is available on CD. Go check him out.
New York based assignment photographer who photographed our new Morphic series and who has the ability and artistry for shooting our contemporary steel work on location in New York.
Helping nature heal cities is how they describe themselves but that doesn’t begin to say how involved they are in a really practical way in getting local communities to plant and nurture tees to beautify their neighborhood as well as provide much needed shade. They have an amazing campus or Yurt Village where you can attend workshops about tree planting, tree pruning and learn about becoming a tree leader.
Los Angeles studio photographer who has the patience needed to shoot both our hardware and furniture work and who is now beginning a second career as a wonderful creator of photographic art. His work can be seen “Affaire in the Gardens” Beverly Hills Art Show Oct 17th and 18th 2009. Well worth attending.
He makes stone sculpture and sculptural Waterfalls. Yoshi’s work is both exciting and calming a rare combination. He has a gift for understanding scale and balance as well as an appreciation for plants and dogs!
If you are looking for a stone sculpture either as a designer or as a home owner you need to visit his web site.
AUTHOR OF THIS BLOG
Anne Pierce
Can’t see the wood for the leaves?
Ascot Vine petite armoire
Leaves in nature offer the artist an inexhaustible supply of colors and shapes but the challenge to a furniture maker is how to use them in a natural and seemingly uncontrived manner or at least that is how Martin Pierce defines the problem. As is true of his use of insects and reptiles, whatever he takes from nature to embellish his buffets or screens or tables must flow naturally over the piece and can’t simply be planted (no pun intended).
However, he does not feel burdened by this organic approach but rather finds it a helpful filter that focuses him on the immediate task too hand. His leaves often form whole swatches of color that cascade across an armoire door or across the drawer face of a highboy. In the Ascot armoire the interlocking maple leaves give us a beautiful array of the red and brown tones of autumn. In the same Ascot series we also see the earlier autumnal hues of amber and yellow as vine leaves spill over the drawer faces of Martin Pierce’s highboy. The iridescence created by leaves bathing in sunlight, which is seen in both these pieces, is achieved by the skillful use of 22k gold leaf which forms the back drop to these autumnal tones. The technique that Martin Pierce uses for his applied leaf motifs is a modern variation on the old technique of japanning.
SycamoreL 1450
The leaf theme is often continued into decorative door pulls that Martin Pierce designs and casts to compliment his japanned pieces. In the Ascot armoire the maple leaves are also rendered in bright red and gold made possible by the clever use of hot patinas applied to silicon bronze.
The leaf designs are very special to Martin Pierce as he personally japans each piece so it is not surprising that the Ascot highboy and armoire are limited editions and every piece is numbered and signed by Martin Pierce and on a rare occasion by his wife Anne or by Jane Miyo who sometimes helps out.
AUTHOR
Anne Pierce
WEBLINKS
http://www.missionwest.biz/hardware.html
http://www.fineinyourhome.com/door.php
http://www.fineinyourhome.com/cabinet.php
http://www.birddecorativehardware.com/products/resourceguide/
http://www.belmonthardware.com
http://www.hutterwholesale.com/hutter.php?section=products&page=reshard
http://www.finialsdoor.com/hardware_accessories.htm
http://www.edelmanplumbing.com/vendors/product-lines-we-carry.php
http://www.mcnamarahirschman.com
In: Uncategorized · Tagged with: armoire
Gilding, japanning and chinoiserie in a contemporary furniture
Ascot tallboy
In the Ascot buffet, armoire and tallboy Martin Pierce uses gold and silver leaf to create scenes that appear three dimensional. The technique he uses is one that combines aspects of japanning with gilding. In England in the 17th and 18th century japanning became very popular and it was used extensively to decorate furniture with raised scenes of birds, flowers and pagodas. At that time, a type of glue called size and whitening were applied in successive layers onto a wood surface, which was then blackened or colored before being varnished and polished. Designs were then traced onto the prepared background and they were then either decorated by color or they were decorated with gold. These artisans would add further interest to these scenes by making the decorated areas raised and they did this by applying a thick compound of sawdust, whitening and gum Arabic.
Martin Pierce has borrowed much from the technique of japanning and the style of chinoiserie but he brought them into a modern context, substituting easier mediums for the traditional varnish, size and gum Arabic. Since Martin Pierce creates his designs over a beautiful background of walnut or English brown oak wood he does not blacken or hide the wood. Martin likes the raised textural nature of japanning but he substitutes casein which is a white paste made from milk by-products for its 17th century cousin. Casein is easily applied either as a thick coat with a hand trowel or for delicate thin leaf stems with a fine brush. Casein has the advantage of drying quickly and affords a soft enough surface that can be sanded smooth with 220 grit sandpaper.
Martin applies successive coats of casein till the design is sufficiently raised and then he seals it with lacquer.
In traditional gilding the gilder applies his gold over a surface of firm clay and this gives him a solid surface that he can burnish and thereby make the gold very bright and brassy. Martin Pierce omits this step as he feels the gold and silver are sufficiently iridescent and because he wants a more muted appearance. He also substitutes a modern product called wonder size for the traditional gold size as he prefers its cold application and controllability. Once the size is dry he carefully applies the wafer thin gold which he presses down into place and carefully rubs with fine wax paper.
Now the real art work begins as he applies different colored glazes over the gold scene. The glaze is made from a mixture of oil paint diluted with paint thinner and the glazes vary in consistency depending on how much of the gold Martin wants to expose.
Martin also uses water spotting to create a natural age to his leaves and stems which dulls down their pristine appearance. Each of these pieces is signed numbered and dated and forms part of a limited edition available through Martin Pierce or through a design professional.
AUTHOR
Anne Pierce
Walnut a versatile hard wood for furniture makers
Hedgerow coffee table
Why walnut? Well it’s really the other way around “Why not walnut” as it really is one of the best domestically (as in US domestic) grown sustainable trees out there that afford the serious furniture maker, that is the type that actually makes a living making furniture, with a supremely versatile wood.
Domestic walnut may not have the snob value of its European counterpart but as far as the ex-Brit, Martin Pierce is concerned it is more than equal to its European rival. American walnut is available in both veneer form and as solid kiln dried lumber, the later being what one needs to make dining chairs and table aprons and frames for custom cabinets such as the armoires and buffets that are found in Martin Piece’s Ascot and Seicho styles of contemporary furniture.
When Martin Pierce first moved to Los Angeles from Lewes, England he began working as a sculptor and furniture maker and he clung to the woods he knew such as elm, holly, laburnum, cherry and ewe. “They were great woods to work in and very hard dense woods that made me keep my chisels sharp” however, as imports they were also cost prohibitive and with a limited new emigrant’s funds, Martin quickly started looking into American species.
Walnut was a very natural choice for Martin Pierce as it is available in large 2” and also 3” thicknesses or as theses thicknesses are more typically referred to 8/4 and 12/4 stock.
The walnut he uses comes from the mid- west from states like Indiana
and it has a beautiful grain and tonal range that runs from gold to chocolate brown to taupe to red. For some designers this range of color can be a problem but Martin Pierce and his wife Anne take pains to explain that it is precisely this range of color that makes the wood so interesting and because these tones occur naturally they always compliment each other.
That said there are times when Martin will actually bleach the walnut to create a more blonde and grain muted look. This indeed is the way he designed and made his Hedgerow coffee table with a hewn chiseled surface and with interlocking branch limbs that look as if they were made from a tree that died in the dessert or perhaps was made from sea bleached driftwood.
On a practical level, as Anne Pierce points out, walnut is a beautiful wood to carve, the grain runs well and it is easy to follow its direction and the wood is not prone to chipping out when carved.
Walnut is also available in striking figured veneers and the Piece’s have used cluster burls for table tops as well as flat cut walnut where they have used the dramatic cathedrals of this type of veneer to create tall armoire doors.
Whether it is veneer or solid walnut, Martin Pierce always begins finishing a piece of furniture by oiling it as he finds this brings out the rich character of the grain, he takes this first step even if he is lacquering the piece, as he sees wood as a little like skin where you need to apply the hand cream before you put on the sun block!
AUTHOR
Anne Pierce
Contemporary Cabinet Pulls Adorn Asian inspired furniture – Seicho Designs
Seicho armoire
The word Seicho according to my hairdresser is a Japanese word that suggests something that is growing. Martin Pierce coined the word to describe the oriental lines that typify the beds, tables, nightstands that form part of his Seicho furniture line that is available to design professionals.
The legs of his Seicho armoire and bed are good examples of this tapering flare that one often associates with classical oriental furniture. However, Martin Pierce gives the legs a grand scale the bulk of which makes the pieces very powerful but still elegant. To create the scale Martin uses large stock walnut and slabs together 2” thick boards to create a 4” mass of beautiful walnut. The vertical grain of the walnut which has gorgeous tonal contrast also helps emphasize the upward tapering character of the legs. The field or flat planes of the Seicho pieces are always made in tamo which is a Japanese ash veneer. The Tamo he uses is usually quartered which gives the wood a very pronounced striation of chocolate brown over a pale straw background. As the wood has a strong grain direction Martin often uses this character to enhance the directional tone of the piece, so he uses the grain in a horizontal way for wider sideboards and dressers, and runs the grain vertically for tall armoires and headboards.
All of the these pieces are complimented by Martin Pierce’s contemporary cabinet pulls, each pull is designed and cast in bronze specifically for the cabinet it adorns. The Seicho armoire uses 4 large bronze scarabs for each of the 4 doors and they are positioned in a decorative arrangement facing each other at a 45 degree angle.
The fields of the Seicho doors and side panels are framed by a dark almost black wenge veneer which is cross hatched, meaning that a long strip of the veneer is cut on the width into small sections that are laid next to each other to form a new cross cut strip. The effect of this wenge border is very dramatic and it creates a strong and defined border that ends the tamo field.
Author
Anne Pierce
WEB LINKS