ABOUT
Joanne Horrobin has lived in Exmoor all her life. From her garden studio she works to create her handmade copper & vitreous enamel sculptures and vessels.
Metalwork has a strong tradition in my family. My great grandfather was a coppersmith, my grandfather became a blacksmith in his late 40s and my father James Horrobin started blacksmithing at the age of 15 with his own father. I have worked alongside him learning traditional forging and forming skills using tools that have been handmade by my father and grandfather.
Painting for over 20 years in oil colours and attending art classes and silversmithing workshops, I was first introduced to vitreous enamel at the age of 10 when I attended a one-day workshop run by Geraldine Hollweg. Over 30 years later my interest in enamel was re-ignited by spending some time with Geraldine talking and experimenting with firing and applying enamel. This coincided with my development of forging and forming skills. To me this was the perfect union, metal and colour, strength and fragility.
I am privileged to live in such a beautiful part of the country. Exmoor has the gentlest curving hills and interesting seascapes with its shorelines full of fossils and eroding cliffs, my inspiration comes from these places, from the vastness of moorland to the delicate lines on million-year-old rocks and pebbles.
Joanne Horrobin. 2022
Process
Vitreous enamel is ground glass mixed with oxides for colour, that when applied to metal and fired in a kiln with intense heat produces resistant properties with lasting and brilliant glassy finishes.
Enamel has been used to enrich metal surfaces, throughout history, jewellery has been made more colourful and similarly, armour, mirrors, boxes, vessels as well as secular and ecclesiastical objects such as chalices and cups.
Formed from flat copper, after cutting the size vessel I want to make, I heat the disc up, which is called annealing. This makes the copper soft enough to form using hammers with wood dishing bowls and steel stakes. When I am happy with the form, I planish the outer side, to create a textural finish, a selection of hammers can be used to create different marks.
Then comes the enamelling- heating the kiln to 800 degrees celcious, each firing takes around 1.5 minutes depending on the size of the vessel. Each firing adding layers of enamel, the result can to some degree be controlled, but there is always an element of chance, leaving a piece in for a few seconds longer can change its colour or transparency a little, and added to this the final shape of the vessel or sculpture is also slightly determined by how many times the piece is fired, as the copper expands and contracts.
The majority of vessels are then finished with a bronze patina and a thin coat of lacquer and come with either a handmade wood base, by Chapelwood studio,Washford, of which I then tanalised, The plates come with a handmade copper base which I have designed and made. Some vessels also stand alone. . Each vessel has been made to perfectly balance, hence every vessel is freely sat on its base.
Inspiration
One period in history which interests me is the Arts and Crafts Movement, of which there are many artists whom I am inspired by.
Silversmith Alexander Fisher (1864 -1936) was a leading artist working with enamel at that time.
In 1906 he wrote – “Enamels should never be copies of anything in nature, nor of another process in painting in art. They should be creations. They are for the representation and embodiment of thoughts, ideas, imagination and for those parts of the world which exists only in our minds”
This, for me stretches far deeper into all our subconscious ideas on perspective, how we see the world around us, how we fit into it and interact with it, and one another.
Colour and metal have fundamentally always been an important part of my life, having watched my grandfather and father, exploring metalwork with utter dedication, hearing the daily strikes of the hammer hitting hot metal on the anvil coming from my father’s forge, and over years, spending time playing around and making fire pokers and curtain rails, coupled with my long-term interest in oil painting, I made the decision to reignite my interest in forming metal, and, with my father, Master Blacksmith James Horrobin tuition, the spark was lit! This was very quickly followed by being reacquainted with Enamel, of which I had last experimented with at the age of 10, though a class with Geraldine Hollweg. After a couple of lessons with her some 30 years later, I was hooked, this seemed like the perfect fit, for me, it symbolises strength and fragility. Of ourselves and our world.
Joanne Horrobin
The heart of the matter.
Each area of work signifies different inward journeys of understanding,
Firstly, the vessels, an offering. This was the beginning, the quest to initially form a pure perfect vessel, initially called by some as lamentation bowls, these vessels, at the heart of me are in some way an acknowledgment of humility and the longing for wholeness. In later years, the vessels have varied and expanded, with added detail and depth. But the smallest of my vessels hold a special place for their precious wholeness.
The birds, fish, and nature, explores coming home to ourselves, the renewing of our minds, body, and spirit and the circles of life and death, as the salmon swims upstream in fresh water, its quest to reach home to spawn, and the beauty of shells left behind after death.
Figurative work looks at womanhood, my own journey to move beyond stereotypical imagery and spoken narrative and expectation, to reveal, even to myself a purer version of self that is recognisable in the heart, mind and spirit, the true essence of each of us that we may find hard to share. My intention, to speak a new narrative and imagery, one of self-assurance confidence, acceptance, self-worth, beauty, and preciousness. Adding to this, my work also looks towards my mother who lost her life 18 years ago to cancer. My rock and beautiful mother, no longer tangible in the world. My work will always be in honour of her and all her beauty.
The sculptural work is very much about form, space and colour, and my desire to see things from a different perspective. The inspiration can come from an opening flower petal to a wave on the sea or rock formations on the rugged coastline. The enamelling can vary in style, from the distinctive textural trail design, a richly layered intricate designs, to a more painterly expression.
Adding to this are details of silver and gold foils, rivets, and cordage, all used to create interest, depth, and intrigue.
T.S. Eliot from “Little Gidding”
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of Earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning: at the source of the longest river the voice of the hidden waterfall and the children in the apple tree not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea