A year in review for Martin Pierce

As the year draws to an end we thought it might be fun and interesting to take a quick look back at some of the new products we introduced in 2014. We began the year in a colorful way with the introduction of our Morphic entry door pull with a new hot patina color added that we debuted at the 2014 HD Expo.  This new option makes further customization of this piece possible for all of your hospitality and commercial clients.

Sculpture was the word of the year for Martin.  From the very interesting custom door hardware designed for a private wine cellar and modeled after the client's artwork to our very personal bust of our beloved pup, Iris, Martin created several new pieces for our clients as well as for our personal use.

We gifted a dear friend with this sculpture of her three-legged dog Dale.  Needless to say, she was delighted.

The beauty of the wood's grain is apparent on the completed bust of our Iris.

The artwork that inspired the design of our client's wine cellar doors

and the completed hardware with the unique feature of being double-sided.

And Martin continues to work on the Jay sculpture

We traveled quite a bit during the year seeking both design inspiration as well as much needed breaks from a very full schedule and were happy to share interesting details of these trips with you; in particular our dream trip to Barcelona Spain to view Antoni Gaudi's architectural masterpieces.

We are excited to begin a new year so stay tuned for new and exciting projects and products.

To view our entire collection of architectural hardware, please visit our site at www.martinpierce.com.

Iris has a new friend-Part 1

We recently shared a post about a dog sculpture we made as a birthday gift for a dear friend of ours that represented her amazing three legged dog.  At the same time we mentioned that we had been contemplating doing a bust of our beloved Iris for our own enjoyment.  Well, one thought led to another and the design process began: As with all of our custom hardware pieces, the design process begins with a drawing. Unlike her predecessor, Brie, Iris is not want to sit still and pose so Martin was able to create a video and, along with the photographs, he was able to capture her sweet nature in his detailed drawing of Iris' impressive head.

This was done on tracing paper which allowed Martin to roughly mark up the outline on each of the 4 pieces of walnut that would become the main section of her head.

The other decision we had to make was what type of wood would best suit this sculpture. We decided on walnut as we found a nice board.  We cut it up and essentially created a rough block with 4 major joints and 2 very small additional joints for the ears. The ears were made from one block of wood cut in half so basically 5 pieces of walnut. The walnut was 8/4 walnut or 2" thick.  As many of our readers know, raw wood used in furniture is bought and measured by the board foot and the thickness of wood is expressed as a fraction e.g. 6/4 being 1 ½”.  The board thickness is calculated by the width and length of board e.g. 8/4 x1’ x 8’ = 16  board feet.  If the thickness was 4/4 (i.e. 1”)  the calculation would be 4/4 x 1’ x 8’ = 8 bd ft.  Welcome back to algebra class!

We have been referring to this piece as "Iris' brother", in part because the sculpture is a tad larger than life size.  Oddly enough, Iris seems to recognize it as a dog's head as she wags her tail and sniffs it every time she walks by.

Join us for part 2 of the story of Iris' bust to see how five blocks of wood become a life-like version of our dog's head.

To discuss your own custom piece or to view our entire collection of custom architectural hardware, please visit our site at www.martinpierce.com.

How Iris enjoys the dog days of summer

August is one of those interesting months in which summertime activities come to a screeching halt yet work activities have not picked up the pace.  I think people must be hesitant to let summer go so, even though school is back in session in many areas and lazy days are over, we just can't seem to get in the mood to go back to work. Iris, our pit bull, certainly agrees with the idea of enjoying one final month of summer.  Although, if truth be told her days are really the same all year round--eat, sleep, play, rinse and repeat.  Oh to be able to enjoy the dog days of summer for just a few more weeks!

Here is Iris barely able to keep her eyes open while she naps in the warm southern California sun.

As you can see, her days never really change as here is Iris trying to stay awake in August of 2013!

One of her favorite past times is to play with her boyfriend Hoyt the corgi.  She is looking longingly for  him from the front steps of the warehouse, their favorite spot to meet.

And, finally, Iris whiling away a sunny afternoon.

Martin is making progress on the bust of Iris that he has been working on.  He decided to carve it out of walnut and it should be beautiful.  I will share details as the work progresses.

In the meantime, if you would like to view our entire collection of custom hardware, please visit our website at www.martinpierce.com.

Gone to the dogs!

The past couple of weeks have found us taking a respite from the mountains of work and sharing with you photos and recaps of some of our "lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer". But, sadly, it is time to get back to work.  Before that we wanted to share with you another fun project: We recently celebrated a birthday (but I will not say which birthday as we do value our friendship) with our very dear friend Tracy.  As our gift to her Martin carved a sculpture of her dog Dale, who is a 3 legged wonder and her loving companion.  The gift  was a very pleasant surprise for her and one that I know she cherishes.

If you knew Dale you would understand what a spunky and funny and loving dog he is.  And while he may be a tad challenged by having 3 legs he is an extremely agile canine and could give us two-legged humans a run for our money any day. Dale was started from one large block of wood although Martin did have to add a separate piece for the tail for, if it had it been from the same block the end grain would have made this section too fragile. The wood he chose was Alder as it is a reasonable wood to carve and it has little grain allowing Martin to paint on Dale's coloring.

As we mentioned in an earlier post, Martin is thinking about sculpting our dog Iris.  Iris' sculpture will focus only on her head.  But just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with her body (unlike her human companions, Martin and I) as she has beautifully defined muscles and a generally athletic physique.  To begin the process Martin studies photographs that will become drawings that are then properly scaled so that they can be traced onto a block of wood.

We were wondering if any of our readers have any suggestions for a suitable wood.  We are thinking of walnut, which carves beautifully but the dark brown color will fade to a golden color over time.  Or perhaps white oak that, despite its name, is light brown in tone. We hope you enjoy our sculptures.  As you may be aware, the process of creating a sculpture and a bespoke piece of architectural hardware is quite similar.  To view our entire collection of custom hardware please visit our site at www.martinpierce.com.