Bespoke Family Automaton
Bespoke pieces are a crucial part of my work. More generally a bespoke commission is a collaboration between customer and maker which prompts sharing of thoughts and dreams. This is often truly personal with all sorts of touching family details. I regularly make special pieces for weddings, anniversaries or christenings - all the important moments in life, while sometimes I have the sad task of commemorating a much loved pet. It transforms the making process into a more involved exchange of ideas which brings huge responsibility with it. Its an honour to be included in people’s lives in this way and to help bring such personal stories to life.
A customer recently approached me to discuss a unique gift for her son. She wanted an automata that would encapsulate him and his family while also showing their combined interests and their pets. She especially wanted a nod to their home in America. It was quite a challenge to bring all these elements together in copper. I managed to record some of the different stages which I hope will help bring the bespoke process alive.
The images below show an initial sketch stage and the final piece. To see the carousel above the family group in action just click this link.
The next gallery of pictures show the raw copper stages of the making process. I’ve added the final hand drawn sketch to show the translation from paper to metal. I use a combination of fine marker pens and paper cut outs to transcribe the sketch from paper to copper then cut the design using metal shears and a fret saw. Once the pieces are cut they need to be filed to get rid of rough edges. Next, eyes are drilled to suggest a more human appearance. I can spend quite a bit of time sawing and filing away at noses as the wrong angle can change the look of the face completely - the differences can be very subtle (I’m glad I don’t do rhinoplasty!). After everything is cut and smoothed off I add linear details either by hammering or taking the copper sheet through a rolling mill. More on these processes in a future blog post…
The biggest task is soldering all the different aspects of the design together. That too is for a future blog post. For now, I hope you get a picture of how the design aesthetics of the automata come together and how paper notions transform into metal.
To see a break down of the processes involved in commissioning a bespoke piece just click here.
