On a recent visit to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, I was taken with the gorgeous metallic gates made by Andrew T. Crawford. From resources to sunflowers, these gorgeous and functional sculptures are made with an understanding of this historical art of blacksmithing and the latest technology.
Crawford started to explore blacksmithing while studying sculpture at The Rhode Island School of Design. “Blacksmithing interested me since it is a functional craft, and I understood it was a fantastic way to create a living,” he states. He transferred to Atlanta, opened his own store and slowly built a company, beginning with purely operational tasks while catering to make ends meet. “For the first three to four decades, I was making mostly mundane stuff,” he states. “It took a good five decades of wanting to quit many times to get the buzz going, gain confidence and design more harshly,” he admits. “As the company has increased, the clientele has grown and become more complex, and also the job and the caliber of craftsmanship from me and out of my employees has grown with it ; everything has kind of fed on itself.”
Crawford, four craftspeople and his assistant work in a studio in Atlanta’s West Midtown, with equipment that ranges from a large power hammer out of a World War II ship to a computerized water-jet cutter.
Andrew T. Crawford
“Most of the ideas happen in the sketchbook,” says Crawford. “The gates display gave me a chance to look at past works and make them exactly the way I’d want them. These are honed-down, pure variants of things I’ve wanted to perform.”
Andrew T. Crawford
Here is his first vision for among his instrument gates.
Andrew T. Crawford
Here, Crawford forms the tools out of metal. The forged pieces will probably be laid out and welded together.
Andrew T. Crawford
Here is a completed gate. This one has a permanent home at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. “The process of blacksmithing provides the gate its weathered feel and era,” Crawford says.
Andrew T. Crawford
“Not all blacksmithing is done by a fantastic big man with a beard and an anvil,” says Crawford. “The process is very multilayered.” While blacksmithing tools such as these are an ancient part of the craft, Crawford makes certain to employ new technologies that can help him create better products that are finished.
Andrew T. Crawford
This is the forge, which reaches temperatures from 1,000 to 1,500 degrees Farenheit. The metal is placed inside until it is blistering hot.
Andrew T. Crawford
“When the metal is forged, you’ve got a very small quantity of time to bend it into the shape you want; it is an issue of a couple seconds,” says Crawford.
Andrew T. Crawford
Shaping, bending, twisting and manipulating the hot metal is called forging. The process of hammering metal and forming it is blacksmithing.
Andrew T. Crawford
This is an energy hammer in activity, a part of the irrigation procedure (if this picture were in colour, you’d see that the tip of this metal is glowing). “You use a pedal to slap the metal, kind of like a giant sewing machine,” explains Crawford. “You can move a good deal of metal through here very quickly.”
Andrew T. Crawford
“While blacksmithing is a historical craft and very little has changed, we are constantly looking to employ the latest technology, since our task is to make beautiful things, not historical reenactment,” says Crawford.
New technologies include electronic welders and grinders plus a water-jet cutter. The leaves on this complex gate were cut by the latter.
Andrew T. Crawford
These gates would be the first major commission at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. They used to indicate the vehicular entrance to the gardens; today they’re a sculptural form in the new cascade gardens. This job gave Crawford exposure, bringing more clients and helping his company grow. Now he considers gates to be the mainstay of his profession.
Andrew T. Crawford
This gate marks one entrance to the Japanese garden.
Andrew T. Crawford
True works of art, Crawford’s gates are an investment. “Creating one of these is a costly procedure,” explains Crawford. “It takes a great deal of energy, materials and labor. One of those gates takes five individuals about three months to complete.” This gate, appropriately displayed in the edible gardens throughout the exhibition, consists of sinuous cornstalks.
Andrew T. Crawford
Here’s a closer look at how intricate these pieces are; this is only one of those ears of corn out of the cornstalk gate.
Andrew T. Crawford
This whimsical No Trespassing gate’s permanent residence is your State Botanical Garden of Georgia.
Andrew T. Crawford
Visitors to the gardens are enjoying this gate’s temporary placement in the café’s courtyard.
Andrew T. Crawford
This gate shows off some blacksmithing curves and twists.
Andrew T. Crawford
This valve gate is one of my personal favorites; it feels like some sort of industrial Dr. Seuss character that has come into life.
Andrew T. Crawford
A sunflower gate marks a transitional spot between the entrance sequence to the gardens and the parterre gardens.
Watch a video of Crawford and his group making this gate
Andrew T. Crawford
It’s amazing to go through the gates from afar and close up, particularly after learning about the entire procedure that went into creating them.
Crawford has some other durable pieces at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, including this bench along with other chairs along the new canopy walk.
Andrew T. Crawford
What is next for Crawford? He’s presently working on a large restaurant job that includes crafting doors, windows, bar stools, lighting, utility shelving and a big shell to get a brick-fired oven. 1 residential job includes railings, lighting plus a roof-deck bridge.
Though his enterprise and his team continue to grow and stretch, he states, “I have not hit my stride. … There are better things to come for my organization and myself.”
The gates exhibition is going to be at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens though the ending of April 2012. To contact Crawford, check out his site, Iron Is King.
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