Edward Bisgood, artist blacksmith
This table, which won second prize in the RDS National Crafts Competition, uses traditional and contemporary blacksmithing techniques. The original design came from a reception table for a customer, a large company in Dublin that wanted a 'wow' table for its reception area. Our major work at Bushy Park Ironworks is architectural - stairs and gates, that sort of thing - rather than furniture. Tony Murphy did the original drawing for the reception table and then scaled it down to this single pod, which is forged from mild steel and copper. It is composed of 40 pieces, each one drawn, cut, forged, filed and finished.
It has three legs and a stem with a copper patinated insert and decorative wraps, which are forged and twisted around the stem. The top is made up of six pieces, and there's a huge amount of chamfering, or bevelling, around their edges, which are then polished, so you get a contrast between the darkened steel and the polished edge. It is topped with bevelled and polished edged glass. I entered the RDS competition for the first time three years ago and won the metalwork prize and the California Gold Medal for the best piece in the show.
Most artist blacksmiths are individuals who design and make up from start to finish. Here it is an amalgamation of the different skills people have. I started as a blacksmith in 1986; I got into it by mistake, doing some welding with farmers in South Africa, and when I came back, and started doing some forging, it was trial-and-error stuff. I bought the forge in Enniskerry, in Co Wicklow, when it was still a farrier forge. Most people mix up farriers and blacksmiths. Good farriers today go by car with their equipment, shoe horses and move around. In the old days the horses went to the forge, and the blacksmith would shoe them and would also do a little bit of metalwork. Gates were made by artist blacksmiths, who only did metalwork.
When I met Colm Bagnall, who had much more technical skill and experience, we joined forces in 1990. Now we primarily do decorative work. When I started I used to go to the blacksmith Jack Furlong in Bray, to ask him questions. He set up in business on the first day of the first World War, and he died at 93 or 94. We bought a lot of his tools when he died. There are so many processes involved in metalwork: cutting, bending, forging, filing, finishing; using heat, hammers, anvils, power tools, files and grinders.
Blacksmithing is 20 per cent of the job; the rest is fitting and putting things together. Some of the finishes can be 50 per cent of the work, and we are continually developing new techniques for different surface effects. Technique is everything. It's not about strength and trying to force it.
See www.bushyparkironworks.com or call 01-4622788