jane dreis

     

THE HAMMERED BRASS HPX

Creative Metal Raising of a Hyperbolic Paraboloid Extension
Edition Size: 1
Material: Brass
Size: 3 inches x 3 inches

Size: 3”H X 3”W X 3”D

Hammered brass sculpture using an anticlastic metal forming technique over a sinusoidal stake, which honestly looks a lot like a big snake.

This is not a project for metalsmiths looking for immediate gratification. It takes hours and hours of hammering in overlapping blows, and repeatedly alternating the approach in two opposing directions. I wish I had counted how many times I flipped over this sheet of metal until it finally came together into this Hyperbolic Paraboloid Extension, or HPX.

I ran across this project in a book titled Creative Metal Forming. One of the authors, Betty Helen Longhi, hosted a workshop in her North Carolina studio and generously guided me through my first HPX. The other participants refused to try it because it involves hammering a square sheet of metal over a stake in diabolically opposing directions. The project has a nasty reputation of reversing every bit of forming progress made each time the metal is flipped.