An urn can be something quietly beautiful and deeply resonate - something to gather your loss and your love, and to help you carry these things forward into your own evolving life."
- sculptor/designer David Orth |
Crafting a Bronze Cremation Urn:
the Search for a Requiem
The woodstove glows and huffs in the winter. In the warmer months I open the door wide onto the garden. Today I am in the shop to make an urn. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.
I get a hold on a sheet of solid bronze and drag it across the shop - it is heavy - as is my search. Can this weight be shifted or transformed? A good, practical question - and also a difficult human riddle. As a craftsman, I will sometimes ask the bronze itself for an answer. So with the hammer, I gentlly ask this question. The bronze is solid, but I have learned that if I ask it carefully, with an open heart, it will stretch and move and turn.
Slowly, over the anvil, a timeworn surface emerges. A mallet coaxes out some curves and angles. The bronze is still heavy, but it starts to glow from within - with something that must be the opposite of heaviness. Things are coming together - practically, metaphorically - both things. Finally the closely fitting parts are seamlessly fused together with a small, blinding arc weld as hot as the sun.
An opening is formed on the bottom of each urn and a cover plate fitted carefully and bolted down tight. Grinding, sanding, and burnishing bring a satin sheen to the urn and prepare it for the patina. The ancient patina solutions are applied over and over until the bronze glows with depth and warmth.
Metalcraft is loud and fiery; but in and around all the noise and sparks there is the quiet heart of the matter. Each urn is crafted to the highest standards. Each urn is unique and personal. I listen to the great requiems like that of Brahms or Faure and wonder if they could be matched in bronze. And of course I realize, certainly not by me. Regardless, some little part of me just won't quit trying.
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