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Wire sculpture is a folk art with a history dating back thousands of
years. Wherever the technology has existed to refine metal and draw
wire, artisans have found ways to adapt the material creatively.
Ancient Egyptians hand-crafted wire jewelry whose beauty endures to
this day; many examples can be found in museums.
Starting over 400 years ago, wireworkers from the mountain regions of
Slovakia invented many ingenious and practical items still in common
use today - bird cages, mouse traps, wire baskets and trays, sieves and
other kitchen utensils. Known as "tinkers", these wireworkers' ability
to invent and fabricate otherwise unattainable devices lent them high
status and respectability throughout Europe's middle ages. Because
their services were essential, traveling tinkers selling wares were
permitted to cross borders without restriction.
The twentieth century brought trials to the once-prosperous tinkers'
community. Russian collectivazation doomed once-flourishing wirecraft
businesses in Russia and Slovakia. In the wake of World War II, wire
products came into mass production. Without their centuries-long
monopoly on wirecrafted goods, tinkers saw their social prestige and
economic security diminish; many were reduced to the hardship of
mending wire goods, rather than creating them.
Somehow, a dedicated few wirecrafters like Vladimir Ferko and Ladislav
Jurovaty kept their craft alive, preserving their traditions and
teaching their techniques. A 400-yar-old wirecraft museum can be found
in Zilina, Slovakia. In reverence to a craft that came close to
disappearing in the wake of the industrial revolution, master
wirecrafters hand down their traditional techniques to a new generation
of contemporary wire sculptors.
South Africa has a thriving cultural heritage of wire sculpture also
known as wire art. Children who could not afford luxuries like cars,
phones, and motorcycles would make themselves toy versions from bits of
scrap wire. This innovative approach to improvisation gradually led to
the development of a thriving cottage industry. Today, street vendors
craft and sell toy cars, animals, and household accessories. Many are
exported for trade on the international market.
Wherever they live in the world, many wire sculptors first came in
contact with wire as part of their everyday environment. A surprising
number of wireworkers either grew up on a farm or came to live on one
later in life. In rural settings, wire is readily at hand in many
forms. Fencing wire, chicken wire, baling wire, phone wire, electrical
wire, welding rods, and even barbed wire offer inventive potential to
the creative mind. A jumbled heap of scrap wire might suggest a willow
tree, a buffalo, a reclining human form... and a farmer might pause a
moment to bend the wire a little bit more into that shape, starting a
long personal journey toward becoming a wire sculptor.
Explore the
International Wire Sculptors
Directory
Finally - a
comprehensive Definition
of Wire Sculpture
Learn How to
care for wire
sculpture
Now forming -
Wire Sculpture International, the Wire
Sculptors Guild
|
World
Class Wire Sculpture
· Elizabeth Berrien (707) 445-4931 · email wireladye@yahoo.com
Content and images
© 1968-2010 Elizabeth Berrien. All rights reserved.
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Updated Aug 10, 2010 · this page valid HTML 4.01
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