Forging Fanfare
In Forging Fanfare the viewer is confronted with the setting and implements used to forge metal. This inert, historical and quasi-museological presentation is paired with a music composition that appropriates brass band (or fanfare) music layered with recorded sounds created by forging metal. By donning headphones the viewer is able to project the aural action onto the static sculptural work creating an active viewer experience. Forging Fanfare conflates the nostalgia and romanticism inherent in both brass band music and blacksmithing, revealing in their anachronistic appeal. Ultimately the work seeks to evoke enthusiasm for metalsmithing, its history and its processes, by implicating our own mawkish relationship to metalsmithing’s contemporary practice. This work was created in 2011 and shown in Savannah, GA and Grand Rapids, MI.