The opening night reception for Fire & Steel will take place at the Elora Centre for the Arts on Thursday February 21st from 7 – 9PM. Enjoy light refreshments and live DJ music, learn about the art of metalworking and meet the talented artists behind the exhibition.
This is a virtual look at my contributions :
Darrell Markewitz first picked up the hammer while a student at Ontario College of Art in the late 1970’s - sparked initially by his interest in Viking Age history. These two elements, metalworking and historic methods, would shape his life’s work. He has worked professionally as an Artisan Blacksmith since the late 1980’s, starting the Wareham Forge in 1992. Over the decades he has created domestic items, historic reproductions, architectural work, and private commissions. Over all, his work has stressed design, primarily in his 'Rivendale' style. From the late 1990's, he has focused on museum work, contributing to a number of major international exhibits on the Viking Age. Significant is his creation of the 'Norse Encampment' living history program for Parks Canada at L'Anse aux Meadows NHSC. An outgrowth of this has been his extensive experimental archaeology research into ancient bloomery iron smelting. He is one of the instigators of the 'Early Iron' movement in North America, certainly the foremost in Canada. This has lead to project work in the USA, Scotland and Europe. Now with over 40 years of forge work experience, he is one of the foremost workshop teachers in Ontario. Increasingly, his personal work trends to sculptural objects.
His (massive!) web site – www.warehamforge.ca – documents both his metal work and particularly the ongoing iron smelting research. Additionally, his blog 'Hammered Out Bits' now holds over 1000 individual articles.
Darrell lives and operates his workshop in lower Grey County.
Bloom Bowl 4
August 2014forged bloomery iron
$ 800
The starting iron bloom was produced in smelt #24, June 2007. The hemi-spherical mass was first flattened to a plate, with the ragged edges and textures of the parent bloom retained. (part of an ongoing series)
bloomery iron / carbon steel core
'Hector's Bane' shows a combination of influences: The unique nature of bloomery iron is featured by deliberately allowing the natural flaws of a raw bloom to remain. This has been emphasized by etching the finished surface, the mottled greys indicating natural variations in carbon content within the material. To create an effective cutting edge, the two half pieces of one bloom have been forge welded on to a hard carbon steel core. The blade shape was inspired by ancient Greek *bronze* knives.
forged structural angle, decorative paint
NFS
This was a sample piece created as part of the large ‘Sea to Shore to Sky’ themed railing work for the Reade & Maxwell House project. The basic element used for the basement stairs would be a series of stylized kelp fronds. Each starts as a piece of steel angle, aggressively forged, with one end flattened and formed to a tight set of irregular reversal curves. No two uprights in the entire series would be identical. The assembled railing piece was finished with coloured paint, dark green with lighter green highlights.
