Roundwood Fort at Trelissick

You may be surprised to know that despite the challenges of the season I find winter a deeply inspiring time. I especially enjoy seeing the trees in all their naked glory!

To my mind, the beauty of winter trees is one of the blessings of this cold and weary season. When the leaves fall the landscape through the trees is revealed, allowing the low winter light to filter through. I love to see bare branches which seem to allow the character of the trees to shine forth, suggesting limbs and a sentient life inside.

I spent yesterday morning surrounded by the beautiful trees of Roundwood Quay. This is a special place in Cornwall where several creeks meet making it a favourite spot for water babies as well as tree huggers. My interest in the area is further enhanced by Roundwood Fort. The panorama of trees above is a 360 degree shot of trees in the middle of this ancient Iron Age fort. The built up earth walls of the fort are still clear to see. Its impossible to walk through this area without imagining what it might have been like to have lived here during the Iron Age. Even though those ancient people didn’t have the advantages of modern life they had the most beautiful sylvan setting in which to live. I imagine it was a busy and thriving settlement. Did those ancient people love the trees too?

Trelissick tree

Tree climbers!

Roundwood trees

Mylor Oak

sunny birches

Scottish winter trees

Snowy conifers

As a child I played for hours in a huge beech tree in the woods near my family home. One of my earliest memories was of climbing up into this tree with great excitement, then getting stuck. I bawled my eyes out until my dad came and rescued me! On a recent trip back to the Old Country I took a walk down memory lane to see the old tree. To my great delight a fellow tree lover had built the most amazing tree house high up in the canopy. Turns out it was built in 2020 by my mum’s neighbours as a lockdown project. What a fabulous thing to do when there’s no school! I’m so pleased that the same tree I played in with my friends is providing fun and joy to a new generation.

Lockdown Treehouse

No surprise then that trees often feature in my work. Being amongst trees or making them is always a pleasure. I make fully abundant summer style trees and more delicately leaved winter versions. Copper lends itself so well to the aesthetics of trees, its natural colours echoing the warm tones of tree bark. The patinated Verdigris I use captures the verdant foliage particularly well too. A marriage made in heaven!

Click on the images above for ordering details.

Next time I’ll share photos and film of the making process…

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.

Initial sketch of automaton

The Finished Piece

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.

Just a quick post today to remind you that its Craft Festival this weekend. You can find me in marquee C stand 38. I’ll be showing automata, metalwork and my new combination of lino print with metal details. If you can’t make it (not everyone is within easy reach of Bovey Tracey!) then watch this space and keep your eye on Instagram (@esthersmithartist) for future updates.

Patinated and enamelled copper and brass automata. The tiniest flowers are made from reclaimed tin that began life as sardine tin.

One of my new lino prints on print paper with a patinated copper hare and enamel heart.

Following my last blog post, which looked at recycled tin, today’s is all about reclaimed wood.

Wood is an essential part of my work. It provides a base for each piece adding texture, colour and warmth. As a nature lover its important to me that I don’t just reach for the most convenient piece of timber, I go to pains to never use virgin wood. Instead, I keep my eye out for alternative sources to ensure the wood is a by-product from someone else’s project. So I use wood that furniture makers and boat builders have discarded, I rescue old bits of broken furniture on their way to the tip and I scour beaches for driftwood. The latter is most satisfying and the subject of today’s blog.

The Moray Firth of Scotland is a haven for bird and marine life and this beach is a favourite beachcombing destination. Its a magnet for people, wrapped in layers, revelling in the detritus that’s been washed along the coast or down through the rivers rushing out of the Cairngorms. Its a beach at the other end of Britain from the Cornish coast but a place I return to regularly as its where I grew up. So far, I haven’t found a beach in Cornwall that’s as rich in treasure, but perhaps I’m not getting to the beaches early enough!

I’m not alone in my love of beach combing. The picture gallery above will give you a sense of what the locals get up to with all the flotsam and jetsam in this lovely place!

Schooner and Sperm Whale

Schooner and Sperm Whale

Day Dreaming

A beautiful gnarly bit of tree branch sets off my ‘Schooner and Sperm Whale’ automata perfectly, the twists in the wood suggesting the movement of the sea. This piece was inspired by the ship building that used to happen in this part of the world. For those that are interested, there’s a fascinating website all about the history of ship building on the Moray Firth. As a child I played with my brothers on the old and disused ship building site. Today its a source of imaginative inspiration!

‘Schooner and Sperm Whale‘ will be making its first public outing at this year’s Bovey Tracey craft festival. Not long now - it opens on Friday June 17th, keep an eye on my Instagram account for more details…

The 3rd picture is my piece ‘Daydreaming’ which was originally made for A Cabaret of Mechanical Movement, an exhibition at Falmouth Art Gallery. The big hunk of driftwood provided a good solid base for an automata that tells the story of my daydreams on a cold winter’s day. My partner was in the south pacific working on a boat building project on the islands of Tuvalu. His stories of island life were in marked contrast to my quiet life in a chilly Cornish workshop. Woven into this tale was the huge life event of my eldest daughter heading off on her own travels for the first time. Not the south pacific, but interrailing round Europe. Still, the sense of adventure and opportunity all came together to make ‘Daydreaming’.

Moray Firth View

The workshop has been full of tiny, sharp bits of tin lately. Reason being that I’ve been busy recycling tin to make flowers. I’ve become a bit of a magpie for brightly coloured tins, chiefly biscuit and sardine but I also found a fabulous green olive oil tin which has been put to good use. Its great to be able to repurpose metal but it does mean endless sharp edges so endless filing to get rid of them. The final artwork needs to be smooth so it doesn’t cause unfortunate accidents! It also needs to be smooth so I can work it into the shapes I need without constantly nicking and scratching myself. Some skin damage is almost inevitable so I have a box of plasters on hand. I also spend a good deal of time with the washing up bowl getting the tins nice and clean - especially the sardine tins!

What a fiddly job this is! But I really love it when those scraps of tin come together and make something completely new. I used the old olive oil tin to make the tulip leaves and the biscuit tin to make the petals. The original shapes of the paper petal templates look something like propellers but when they’re put together and formed into a 3D flower they lose that machined-aeronautical look altogether. The tulip heads have a centre hole drilled so I can attach a brass stem which is knotted to keep everything in place.

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

I hope this video gives you a good idea of the final automata. My photo history has completely missed out making the base of the piece and fiddling around with the cams. That’s for another day. But I did want to share where my love of tulips came from. The book in the background is Oscar Fabres’ Kwik and Kwak. My granny had this book, it was given as a Christmas present to my mum and aunty in 1945. It was the heirloom I wanted most from my granny’s house. Kwik and Kwak is a charming picture book which tells the tale of two little Dutch ducks who live a peaceful life cycling through the tulip fields of Holland (ducks on bicycles?). I loved those pictures of tulip fields, pretty Dutch houses and fishing boats. Still do. Inevitably, for the time the book was written, the story takes a darker turn but all ends well in the end and I hang on to the early depictions of peace and tulips in rural Holland. They’ll always be my favourite flowers!

As a response to the horrendous situation in Ukraine I’m running a little fundraiser competition so today’s blog is all about how you can get involved. All money raised will go straight to the Disasters Emergency Committee for Ukraine. I am donating the automata, all material costs and postage costs. I’d love you to take part and help me raise money to support the people of Ukraine. You need to go to my Just Giving page to contribute.

Sunyashniki

I have made sunflower automata in the past, as its the national flower of Ukraine it seemed obvious to fundraise around this beautiful flower. Sunflowers work so well as automata as they naturally turn throughout the day to follow the sun so turning the handle on the automaton to see the sunflower rotate makes perfect sense. I made a completely new automata especially for the competition from patinated copper, golden leaf and reclaimed hardwood. The title ‘Sunyashniki’ is Ukrainian for sunflower. By contributing to my fundraiser you will be in with the chance of winning the automata and helping a most worthy cause. Your name will go into a hat once for every £10 donated so donate £10 and get one chance to win, donate £30 and get 3 chances to win and so on. Don’t forget to tick the box to share your contact details with me so I can get in touch if you win! The competition closes on April 25th and a winner will be drawn and notified on April 28th. Full details of how it works are on my Just Giving page. You can see the automata at work on my website here.

Thanks for reading and taking an interest in sunflowers and causes.

Very best of luck!

Couldn’t let World Book Day pass by without some words. World Book Day’s a bit of a double edged sword for me as it brings horror as well as joy. Joy that books are given their own celebratory day and horror that I’ll have to help my daughter come up with a World Book Day costume for school! The costume isn’t needed till tomorrow so time for other things first… I’d like to focus on the enrichment that books have brought to my life. I’m an avid reader and always have been. Its not just the content of the books, the stories and the knowledge, but I love books as objects in their own right. I feel most at home in a room full of books!

One of my first automata featured a pile of old books. At the time I made it (2013) I was teaching on the craft element of the Foundation Course at Falmouth University (sadly no longer in existence - but that’s another story). I also worked closely with dyslexic students and had a keen interest in visual thinking as a learning model. As a staff we were invited to make a piece of work that would represent our work at the university so I came up with an automata as a self portrait. As you can see it features me having a good old think whilst sitting on a pile of books with copper and brass representations of thoughts spinning round my head. It felt like sacrilege when I drilled down through the books to transform them into a base but it was worth it to get the aesthetic I was after. The drilling allowed me to pass a tube of brass through the books so I could construct a solid base keeping everything together and creating a sound foundation for the automata. I have since made other versions of this piece, most notably one that featured an old Olivetti typewriter ordered as a gift for a Scottish writer. The original one remains on a shelf in my workshop - its not for sale but I have another daydreamy piece that can be bought from my online shop.

I’ve managed to hold on to books from childhood that are too precious to part with. My earliest book memory is of ‘Pookie’ by Ivy L Wallace. The beautiful illustrations of a misfit rabbit are etched into my memory and this particular page showing Pookie lost in the storm remains an abiding image of drama and fear. What a fabulous illustration of a tree caught in a storm, I need to revisit this book more often! You’ll be reassured to know that Pookie is rescued and finds shelter with a kind and welcoming fairy. Such a poignant story for our current times. It brings to mind the vital place for books in all our lives. Books can provide respite in difficult times and offer children specifically a much needed window into other worlds. My thoughts are with all those children that need such solace in their lives.

Phew! January is in the bag and lighter days with spring bulbs are making an appearance.

As a jeweller its impossible to welcome February in without thinking of St Valentine’s Day. Such a problematic festival. All very well if you’re loved up but awful if you’re in the throws of unrequited love!

I did a bit of research to figure out where all this forced romance comes from. I’d been under the impression that its one of the Christian festivals that was tagged on to a much older Pagan rite. I expected to read about boxing spring hares, fertility rites and ‘Wicker Man’ style shenanigans. It turns out there are possible links to the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia which occurred in mid February. But it seems any link to St Valentines Day is tenuous. Lupercalia was rooted with an order of monks called the Luperci, so named because of their connections to Romulus and Remus and their wolf mother. The story itself is wild, involving animal sacrifice, blood and fertility rites. Good old Romans! Its a far cry from the hearts and flowers of our familiar St Valentine’s Day but may provide inspiration for a wolfie automata in the future…

So who was St Valentine? Again, there are different stories and at least 3 different Christian Saints named Valentine - all martyred! The one we’re probably after was put to death by Roman Emperor Claudius II when he was caught illicitly marrying young couples. The problem was that only single men could be drafted into the Roman army so a hasty marriage was often sought to avoid the ravages of a soldier’s life. Charming old Claudius outlawed marriage for young men and good old Saint Valentine took pity and did the honours in secret. His reward was to be put to death, poor chap.

Whatever the roots of this festival of romance its very much part of our culture now which makes it the perfect time to share a pictorial explanation of romantic automata making.

This heart inspired automata was one of my earliest designs. It's cut out of sheet copper and brass, with bits of tube and wire. The whole lot is heat treated, soldered and formed into an open box with a revolving heart (oh yes, be still my beating heart!) The base is an offcut of oak reclaimed from a local woodworking business (more on that another time). The brass box is treated with copper nitrate to give a dark base to a top layer of golden leaf. The mechanism is made of a cam cut from copper and soldered to the central winding tube. The cam sits below a follower, also made from a disc of copper. The movement relies on plain old friction to spin the heart around.

I also made a slightly different version based on an old childhood favourite - the Loveheart. Might be making more of these. Any ideas for text? I seem to remember ‘Oh Boy’ as well as the usual ‘Kiss Me’ and ‘Be Mine’. Did you know that Lovehearts now have emojis on them? Oh how times change!