Decorative Door Handles Inspired By Bees

This has been an amazing spring and we owe the abundance of blossoms and in particular wisteria to these past wet winter months followed by warm spring days. The variety and scent of the blossoms in the Hollywood Hills is almost over powering and I wonder if the local bee population has a weight problem this year as the bee legs are laden with the weight of pollen making their bumbly flight even more miraculous.

In the photograph below I hope I have captured the size and weight of this cascading wisteria blossom and the bumbling carpenter bee that hovers in the foreground. The long running California drought motivated Martin and I to replant our garden with drought tolerant plants and the wisteria creeper was a prized addition. While our wisteria plant took at least two years to become established we are hoping that it will continue to thrive and attract bees, cactus flies and both resident Anna humming birds as well as migratory black-chinned humming birds.

The Carpenter bee is so named for the nests that they excavate in the dead wood of trees and man-made power poles though they are also known to opportunistically hijack and improve upon the holes left by other insects.

Bee Door Knob

The bumble bee is part of our Netsuke collection of animal door handles which includes a lizard, a frog and rabbit. All of our work is made to order and designed and manufactured here in Los Angeles.

Contemporary LED Wall Sconce for Hotels

The advent of small LED’s that require low gauge wires and the efficiency of these low voltage bright lights has made it possible for us to tailor our door handle designs to fit the custom light market.  The Morphic cylindrical door pull is the first piece that we have adapted from being a door handle to a wall sconce. It’s very close cousin the 16” door handle has been re-tooled so that it now functions as a discreet but intriguing wall sconce.

When is a handle a wall sconce?

Iluminated Door Handles

The simple answer is when it is hanging on a wall or along a corridor to create patterns of light that will add mood or atmosphere to a room or corridor. The Morphic sconce is available through design professionals and offered either in a brushed stainless steel or in an oil rubbed bronze. This UL listed luminaire at present is offered with a single color LED small spot and can be ordered with a red, blue, green or white light. Who knows maybe a boutique hotel will use the different colors to help their guests remember which floor their room is on, this certainly would take the stress out of finding your room after a long day trudging the halls of a Vegas trade show.

Soon we will be offering this piece with a color changing spot and then our designer clientele can really have fun pairing the mood of each floor or room function with the color of the LED. I can see it will not be long before soft amber shades come to be associated with the bar lounge with pale aqua tones create a soothing welcome to the sauna.

Since boutique hotels need to periodically freshen their appearance we hope our color changing luminaires can provide a cost effective option.

Unusual Wall Light Captured on Video

The first of our new LED low voltage wall lights has now been released as a video and can be seen in the new Lighting section of this site or by visiting our gallery at Youtube.

We begin our venture into the artistic wall light scene with our unusual wall sconce named in honor of the Mother of Dragons and the dragon eggs she rescues in “Game of Thrones”.

We have chosen to cast this piece in stainless steel, a medium reminiscent of armor and chain mail and that is fittingly flame proof. The cap of the sconce is a fusion of  medieval themes with its turreted tower peak  and diamond shaped shields. By contrast the body of the sconce is organic and fluid with molten shapes reminiscent of much of the work of Gaudi and other masters of the Art Nouveau era.

See Video Gallery

The Dragon Egg sconce is available  in stainless steel or in bronze and is currently being released with a single color, red, blue, green or white LED. We do plan to make this available as a color changing wall light so stay tuned.

The advent of low voltage LED’s has motivated us to enter the wall lighting market and we look forward to helping designers with their residential and hospitality needs.

We would again like to extend our thanks to Jeff Jenkins of www.onefoxtwofox.com for making this video possible.

New Handles and Lighting A Spring Summer Preview

As we approach day time savings we wanted to update you on our forthcoming new handles and lighting and new internet partnerships.

Videos

We have been busy developing and shooting a series of videos which will soon be live on our website and also on Facebook and Daily Motion. The videos were made by Jeff Jenkins of www.onefoxtwofox.com and they follow on from our lizard and door handle video collections.

We are currently making a time-lapse video of a new and very grand custom door grip that will be used as the main entry and ballroom door handle for a new project in Texas. Too date the video shows how the pattern has been carved and we will continue this visual diary by showing how the mold is made, how waxes are produced and finally what this 6’ tall bronze grip actually looks like.

We are also continuing our   time-lapse video of the new Hedgerow illuminated door handle which we began last year and which we hope to complete by the end of the year. The new Hedgerow handle is extremely intricate and it has proven to be technically challenging to find appropriate areas to incorporate LED lights.

New Illuminated Cabinet Pull

We are following on from our illuminated door handles and are now adding 3 illuminated cabinet pulls that will be part of the Morphic collection and which will range in size from 2” to 14”.

New Catalogue

This week we will be launching our March 2017 Hardware & Lighting Catalogue which will be available as a pdf from our website.

New venture

Soon we will be partnering with www.interiordesign.net and www.architonic.com to showcase and officially launch our venture into the low voltage lighting market. Through these 2 sites we hope to be able to effectively connect with designers and architects.

Custom LED Wall Sconce Cast in Bronze

Our Floral Wall sconce is now available to Interior Designers and design professions as a UL listed low voltage luminaire and can be specified in a light or dark oil rubbed bronze patina. At present we are offering the sconce in single color, red, green, blue or white LED’s and later will be adding color changing LED’s.

The Floral sconce was fashioned from the foliage Martin and I saw when staying in the Albayzin quarter of Granada, Spain and by the local Moorish art work of artisans like Munira Mendonça who honors the traditions of this region in her superb embossed leather work.

The vibrant colors of Munira’s stamped designs influenced this piece and led us away from the more obvious use of white light to more dazzling blue and red LED’s which provide a dramatic contrast to the subdued but rich tones of bronze.

As low voltage luminaires, designers will be offering their clients an energy efficient yet still beautiful fixture with a carbon foot print firmly planted in Los Angeles which is where we cast and finish all of our work.

As we have shared in earlier posts Martin made this piece by printing a 3D hollow gourd shape. The 3D print was then formed by Martin using a variety of hand chisels and dremels to create the movement and detail of each leaf. Each sconce has a total of 60 sprigs with 3 leaves on each sprig. The LED light sits in the top of the fixture which was modeled on the shape of an upturned trumpet flower.

Collage of LED Door Handles

We will soon be releasing our new UL LED products into the design world and thought it would be fun to create a collage made from parts of  our new pieces to see if you can identify which sections came from which product. The first pieces we will be introducing will be based on fish, dragon, floral and coral themes so which ones are shown here?

The second part of this puzzle is to see if you can guess which shapes we used from our gourd concept drawings to create the lace sections for our luminaires, did we use one or more of the gourd sections in the collage? The actual shapes for each hole in the area where light and color shine through are not as arbitrary as they may appear. The contour of each hole determines exactly what shapes will be created as shadows by the LED light. When Martin Pierce designs an illuminated piece it has to appear beautiful both when illuminated and as a  non-lit sculpture.

See The Collection

The thorny outer edge of the floral sconce leaf makes for a bold green shadow statement setting the mood of the room. To allow for mood expression our scones will be available in different LED colors.

The third part of the puzzle is to guess which metals are shown in the collage.  Our new pieces, following on from our door hardware collections are cast either in stainless steel with a brushed or polished finish or in bronze and in either a light or dark antique patina.

When to Use a Door Knob Versus a Door Lever?

When to choose a door knob versus a door lever? When it comes to truly custom hardware where a design is being created for a specific project then the choice between a door lever and door knob is largely a question of taste and budget and less a question of function. If the door knob or lever is being created from the drawing board on-wards then some of the limitations off each can be overcome by a creative design.

Door knobs by nature are a handles that can be turned either clockwise or anti-clockwise to release the door latch. By comparison a door lever unless it is operating a multi-point lock has to be depressed to release the latch. This can be an important issue when designing for the kitchen or other wet areas and when designing for the disabled. A lever has the upper hand so to speak when your hands are wet or full of shopping as it can be depressed with ones elbow or possibly with one’s foot! Clearly for those with limited gripping strength, a door lever has clear advantages.

The textured tree canopy is a good gripping surface

Door levers are also directional with the lever pointing away from the latch towards the hinge and this can be an important consideration when working with a narrow stile. In this case when you grip a knob your knuckles may come too close to the door jamb especially when the door is being pulled closed .  By comparison the area of a door lever that is gripped is typically at midpoint along the lever and a safe distance from the door jamb.

A symmetrical aesthetic inspired by Netsuke

So why do we ever use door knobs? Well they are inherently more self- contained and less obtrusive than there lever counterparts and they arguably  make a more symmetrical  aesthetic statement. In the world of custom door hardware as knobs are not usually directional one knob pattern and mold will be needed unlike a custom door lever which frequently requires a left and right pattern and corresponding molds.

Making Unique Cabinet Knobs from 2 Dimensional Art

I have recently been sorting through our digital collection of Martin Pierce’s drawings and wanted to share these with our blog followers. As a door hardware designer, our clients who are themselves designers frequently ask us to create unusual cabinet knobs as statement pieces for residential projects and also for public spaces in commercial settings. If we are to be awarded the commission, then the first task is to come up with a beautiful drawing that will capture the interest of the designer. Some designers will have already sketched out their own ideas but for the majority of commissions we are given little to go by, which we like, as this gives Martin a broad creative license. We have shared with you how our Hawaiian door pulls began with a commission by designer Debbie Zylstra who was in search of cabinet knobs for an entertainment center and how the designs we created needed to incorporate local floral and bird life.

See Collection

The drawings above were the basis of the Hawaiian bird pulls and were approved as drawn. The drawings were done by hand old school fashion on a drawing board and then colored using a variety of colored pencils of the type available at any art supply store. While Martin does find some of the tools in Photoshop helpful, such as the transform and copy functions, his designs always begin with a free hand drawing, either in his sketch book, or on a larger scale on his drawing board.

Organic Inspiration for LED Wall Sconces

We have named our recent wall sconce Dragon Egg as we were riveted by the special effects and scenery of this show but this was a tongue in cheek naming and while the gourd shape may be egg like the texture of the piece is not. The custom sconce started life in Martin’s sketch book and went through several design modifications before being created as a three dimensional piece.

In this and in the next few posts we will be looking at how our new LED wall sconces and illuminated door handles came to life.

The Dragon Egg sconce took its direction and feel from our Morphic custom door handle collection, which was based on coral and other oceanic forms. Martin began the design by deciding the overall shape and settled on the gourd. He then focused on the characteristics of the open area and moved away from geometric shapes to a more random and sinewy look.

The LED spot shines down through this open area and creates a beautiful fragmented light that you will be able to see soon to our upcoming sconce video.

How did we then make the pattern and subsequent castings?

From the design shown in item 4. below a full scaled drawing of the gourd was created and a large 20” cube of alder was slabbed together and glued to create the “blank” for the pattern.

The blank was then turned on a wood lathe to create the gourd shape. As a wood carver and turner it is easier for Martin to create patterns using these older skills then to digitally create a 3D model. However from this stage onwards we worked using 3D printing technology in conjunction  with carving to create the final pattern below. The initial alder gourd was scanned and then its surface area was mapped digitally. The programmer then digitally hollowed out the interior of the gourd shape leaving a wall thickness of 3/16” and went on to print this as a resin model. Martin then drew his sinewy design onto the resin gourd and using a dremel tool followed the contours of the sinews and ground through the resin wall to create open areas for the light to pass.

Wall Sconce Drawings Copyright Martin Pierce

Before the advent of 3D printers, Martin would have created the hollow gourd from solid wood and the inner material would have been carved out using a variety of hand chisels. While 3D printing is a big aid to pattern making, carving is still Martin’s preferred technique for complicated irregular shapes and for adding design details as these can often change as the pattern is developed.

Left: Printed one half of the hollow resin gourd Right: Gourd sculpted by hand

Golden Door Handles

While we have on occasion silver plated our designs thereby earning the description of luxury door hardware, the appearance of opulence can be achieved in silicon bronze. We often visualize bronze door handles in darker more antique oil rubbed finishes but cast silicon bronze has much richer golden tones. Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper with varying amounts of silicon, zinc and iron and trace amounts of other metals and metalloids including aluminum, manganese and phosphorous.

While the high amount of copper gives the bronze casting its rich color, the remaining components combine to make the bronze a strong, durable and rust resistant alloy. The strength of the cast bronze and its dense pore free surface allow us to achieve a highly polished finish that looks like gold.  We first started using this high polish finish with our cabinet frogs in an effort to emulate the silky glossy appearance of tree frogs which were the inspiration for their design.

Lately we have started casting pieces from our contemporary Morphic collection in bronze rather than stainless steel. When cast in bronze these Morphic cabinet pulls take on a decidedly Moorish quality.

Modern Door Pulls Morphic

However, while bronze does not rust it does tarnish over time and if left un-sealed with develop its own unique patina with tones ranging from dark bronze to green depending on the chemical properties in the surrounding air. However, very much like silver ware the piece can be re-buffed or polished to bring back the sparkle. If the piece is a door handle then daily use will also buff the areas that are constantly being touched. 

Luxury Handles for Windows by Martin Pierce

When we began our venture into functional art we started by assessing how doors and cabinets function and endeavored to make all of our art hardware suitable for most uses. We have described in other posts how we adapted our custom door levers and escutcheon designs so they would be compatible with privacy and passageway latches, deadbolts and mortise locks and could be specified according to the door function they performed. Needless to say we did not think of all the possible ways that a door lever could be used and so when our Willow collection was specified as the style for furbishing a complete home, including the windows, we had to create several custom pieces to fit the narrower dimensions of the window frame as well as act as a trim for a lift and slide mechanism that was being used to push open the heavy windows with minimal effort. Thankfully we had seen this type of window in use in Europe and New York so had a rudimentary understanding of the challenge. The results were 2 new additions to our collection of custom door handles.

                                                     Handle for a lift and slide window mechanism

As our homes and commercial environments evolve so we are regularly challenged to adapt and customize our work and recently this has taken us into adding LED lights to our door handles and soon we will be adding a new section to our site devoted to this new and growing area

Making a Statement with Colorful Entry Door Handles

While oil rubbed bronze door handles are naturally beautiful and over time develop their own unique patina, designers seeking a more dramatic entry statement may want to consider powder coated steel as an option. We are fortunate in Los Angeles  to have access to highly skilled powder coating experts like Dan Regan owner of Primo-Powder. We began working with Dan when presented with the challenge of powder coating the inside of a custom Morphic pull that had been specified by Mike Hong of MHA.

The problem was two-fold:

1. How to perfectly match in powder the client’s brand color of that was sampled as a painted chip.

2. How to apply the color once developed through the front lattice of the handle while leaving the lattice and front of the piece color free.

What was surprising was that it was far more difficult to match the color than it proved to be applying it.

See Collection

The client’s brand color “Toronto Blue” was available as a liquid paint by manufacturer Sherwin Williams but  not as a powder. We contacted Prismo Powder Coating who manufacture powder and who are familiar with matching colors. The problem though was that while liquid paint has a specific pigment formula or code, there is no cross reference from paint to powder so this process was done by comparing the blue paint sample with the Prismo’s archival records for the color blue. While some of the suggestions were close, out of hundreds of blues none was a perfect match so a custom blue was formulated for our project.

We learned a lot from this project and with help from Dan Regan gained a valuable education in how color can selectively be applied to metal using high temperature masking tape.

With this new insight designers can now add color to our Ergo Entry Door Handle and other pieces as shown in the photos above.

What Do We Mean by Custom Door Handles?

We decided to launch 2017 with some notes for designers who may be looking for custom door handles and hope to explain when custom work is a viable option. To begin with, for many people, the term “custom” is used to describe the production of a piece for a specific customer, in other words it is made to order for that customer and not a stocked off the shelf item. In this sense, all of our work is custom as we make every piece to order and each handle is cast, machined and finished according to the designer’s requirements. In this context while the product may be made to order, the patterns, molds and tooling jigs already exist hence the relatively short lead time of 4 to 6 weeks.

Custom - each handle is cast, machined and finished to order

The term custom is also used to describe a product that we already make but that needs to be adapted or modified to fit the designer’s specific site conditions. In this context, the viability of adapting an existing piece is determined on a case to case basis. The first consideration is whether the existing mold can be used to create a wax replica that can be modified to achieve the required adaptation. For example, if a designer has a narrow door stile then she made need a narrower escutcheon plate to fit the door comfortably. The grapevine lever set and our large lizard handles have both been customized in this way and the wax replicas were re-shaped by hand to remove ½” to ¾” from the base of both escutcheon plates. Clearly this takes time and not all styles lend themselves to being so adapted.

Custom - the escutcheon plate can be made 1/2" narrower to fit a narrow door stile

If the adaptation is too great or the number of pieces too many then the next option is to develop a new pattern and mold(s). This process is inherently expensive as it involves;

Designing and often re-designing a piece.

Creating full scale drawings showing the piece from several perspectives.

Creating a 3 dimensional pattern – one for each piece, if the design calls for a right and left directional piece, then two patterns will be needed.

Creating a rigid mold which will be used to create wax replicas of the original pattern and will be used in the lost wax process to create either bronze or steel castings.

The above steps add considerable time and cost to the production of the piece but if it is a piece being ordered for multiple doors then these costs can be amortized over the cost of the project.

Looking Forward to 2017 With New LED Lighting

We are looking forward to a new year with new products and with new ventures which we wanted to preview in the last days of what proved to be an interesting and creative year.

Through-out 2016 Martin Pierce has been busy designing, sculpting and developing prototypes for his new LED illuminated door handles, cabinet pulls and sconces. It would be an understatement to say that this has proven to be a multi-faceted challenge but thankfully our work has been rewarded and just before the Christmas break we received the great news that our products had received UL approval. We will write more about this process in upcoming posts.

Dragon Egg Sconce with LED Light

In 2017 we will be photographing and making videos of these new pieces and our hope is that designers will share these with their discerning clients. To further that goal in 2017 we will be partnering with the well-established Interior Design site www.interiordesign.net and their partner Architonic to launch our new illuminated door handles as well as our new door hardware so that designers can easily access this material on this site as well as on our home site.

In 2017 we will be represented in Moscow by EMPORIO.RU. a showroom known for luxury hardware brands. We were approached in late 2016 by Mikhail Grigoriev, general director of EMPORIO RU who was drawn to the craftsmanship and detail of our castings and who was searching for more original works that are not available in Russia. We are looking forward to this new venture and to working with such a well-respected showroom with offices in Moscow and St. Petersburg and with projects both within Russia and abroad in Monaco, France, Switzerland and even here in the US.

Emporio.Ru can be reached through their site at: www.emporio.ru

Choosing Cabinet Pulls for Christmas Ornaments

While we make all of our unique cabinet pulls to order, some of our designer clients plan ahead and use  our unusual cabinet knobs as a special Christmas gift or even as stocking fillers. The pieces shown here have been used in this way and we also have been known to use the smaller items on Christmas Day when sharing the Secret Santa game with our neighbors and friends.

Lizard Cabinet Pull - stuffing stocker Christmas Idea

The pieces that are most often ordered tend to be our nature inspired pulls as well as our animal and insect pulls and our polished left and right frogs as well as lizard pulls top the list as best sellers at this time of the year. These pieces in particular do have a jewel like quality that fits the holiday mood and indeed  were  ordered by Candy & Candy in plated silver for a London residence.  The pieces were first cast in bronze and then electro plated with nickel to act as a barrier metal before being silver plated. Plating is a highly skilled profession and we are fortunate to work in Los Angeles where we have some of the finest platers including the renowned Boyles Synder who have been silver plating family heirlooms for  over 80 years and who can still be reached the old school way at tel: (323) 663-5363

We have also used our leaf cabinet pulls as a decorative detail this year to create a festive wreath for our digital Christmas Card which we recently posted.

Celebrating Christmas with Martin Pierce Cabinet Knobs, Capitol Records and Patron

Here at Martin Pierce we celebrate the Christmas season in true Hollywood style. Living in the Hollywood Hills we have a great view of the iconic Capitol records building which every year celebrates the season with an illuminated Christmas tree. This year we have chosen to incorporate our view of the tree and the well known Patron neon sign with some festive cabinet knobs to make a Christmas card. We have also used the vine motif that appears on some of Martin Pierce’s collection off limited edition furniture designs. The card is a collage of photographs with the view from our home as the center piece. Every year, just before Thanksgiving, the Capitol records Christmas tree is lit. It is an event that marks the change of season and is a tradition we have come to love. The tree lights up just before sun down and these days stay lit till about 6:36am.

This year the celebration is also of historic importance as this is the 75th anniversary of the founding of Capitol records. In honor of the anniversary the City of Los Angeles will be proclaiming November 15th as Capitol Records Day. Apanel  has also selected 75 albums from the thousands of recordings made at Capitol to represent the best of Capitol records.

To find out  more about anniversary events and special product releases commemorating the year visit:

www.capitolrecords.com/capitol-records-to-launch-year-long-75th-anniversary-celebration/

Trees That Inspire Door Handles

Not all trees lend themselves or rather bend themselves to work as luxury door handles so when creating a tree door handle we use considerable artistic license.  With our Hedgerow design we blended several different trees and tree parts. Which trees inspired us? I am reluctant to name any one tree in part because this iconic design reminds different designers of different trees but also because the design came from Martin’s imagination and not from studying any particular tree. So, if the handle reminds you of a California Cypress or gnarly wild oak or even of a Bunyan tree, then you are right.

Heroic Trees Hedgerow Collection

We are in the process of adding different finishes to the Hedgerow tree and as you may know from previous posts are also developing a new tree design which if all goes well will be lit with interior LED diodes, so please do follow our post for progress reports. As with the Hedgerow heroic handle, while the new design is instantly recognizable as a tree the family it belongs to is imaginary.

The canopy of the Hedgerow tree shown above flows from the trunk of the tree and it is pitched and so that the back of the canopy lies flat and flush to the front of the door. The tree handle is attached to the door by through bolts that screw from the inside of the door into the back of the canopy.

The gnarly Bunyan reminiscent roots also flow from the trunk and similarly have a flat back where another though bolt supports the hefty handle that is cast from 10lbs of solid bronze.

Banyan tree roots inspiration for Hedgerow Pull mounting point

A Textural Approach to Luxury Door Hardware

While much of what we cast is visually dramatic where possible we like to add a textural note to our Luxury door hardware. The lost wax method of casting is perfect for creating deeply textural pieces that would be almost impossible to achieve with less expensive casting methods such as sand casting. The depth of a particular detail is limited only by the pattern makers skill and by the gravity flow of the molten metal.             

The pattern is the 3 dimensional original and is the starting point for the casting. The mold is made from either a latex solution that can be brushed on or from a catalytic 2 part silicone solution that can be poured over the pattern. While both solutions take an almost perfect impression from the pattern, the latex solution will require several layers and will require a more rigid casing to support the floppy mold.

Vortex of Swirling Leaves

The Willow heroic door pull is a good example of the type of detail and texture that can be achieved from a silicone mold that was made from the pattern above. The pattern was carved by Martin in bass wood which is a pale and tightly grained wood and then painted with a grey primer to more clearly reveal any imperfections and to also help fill in any pores in the wood grain. The undulations in the leaf tendrils left good impressions in the mold and the result is a casting that is an almost perfect facsimile of the original but when rendered in bronze creates a stunning door handle.

Section of the pattern with grey primer to show any imperfections and to fill the wood grain

Happy Thanks-Giving

We have used some of our cabinet knobs to create a festive wreath to celebrate Thanksgiving, see if you can spot the pieces we used. We will be spending our Thanksgiving with friends and neighbors and celebrating the day pot luck style. To all our friends, neighbors and clients may you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.      

Anne and Martin Pierce

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Unique Bronze Towel Rails

We are known for casting unusual custom door handles and our creative designer clients often will come to us with their ideas for a new concept which is how the dialogue began with a design group in Florida who specialize in luxury yacht interiors.  As I am not well versed in specifics of yacht interiors I had assumed all yacht fixtures needed to be very light weight and made in corrosive resistant stainless steel, so was pleasantly surprised when we were asked to use our fiddlehead fern motif to create towel rails and robe hooks  in solid bronze.

While the major component of a towel rail is a simple bar the fun and artistry comes in creating wall mounts to support the rail. However, with this custom project  we were also tasked with making a curved towel rail to fit the wall surface in the master bathroom which was no easy feat given the very specific radius of the wall. In this post I wanted to show we re-invented the fiddleheads to change their function from gently protruding cabinet pulls to wall mounted supports able to take the weight of a solid bronze towel bar.

Cast in solid bronze and finished with a dark patina to accentuate the shape. The images here are the end result of a collaborative process with our very creative designer client. Below is the drawing that helped us understand the radius needed to fit the curvature of the master bathroom wall.