New Directions in Custom Door Hardware, Lighting and Art

Starting a new year always provides impetus for new designs for our wide range of door hardware, lighting and now art. While the creative process lacks boundaries, the demands of work place requires that we treat these 3 areas differently, with “art” still being relegated to third position almost as an indulgence. This year we intend to indulge ourselves.

Art

Bronze Stag Beetle 20”W 15”D 6”H Limited Edition

Over the last few years when time permitted Martin Pierce has been sculpting and painting large scale insects and what he sees as their small-scale humanoid companions, the scale is deliberate and focuses attention on the species that matters. Sculpting insects began when Martin sculpted his first “Hornet on Apple” sculpture which was carved in Yew- wood in England in 1977. His most recent insect sculptures are stag beetles rendered in bronze or steel and available as single freestanding pieces or as dueling pairs mounted on tree bark cast in bronze

Tall Door Handles

Perhaps another indulgence but the scale of large door grips provides the opportunity to create some beautiful pieces. The brand of a hotel or resort can at once both inspire and restrain a design and that challenge is what makes custom commercial door handles fun to conceive and cast.

Morphic Serpentine Long Door Pull

Lighting

As our door grips become longer so too do the illuminated Morphic door handles. These organic lace- like handles will be customized in 2019 to offer a range of lengths from 16” to 64” and we are experimenting with a version of this handle that would have alternating sections of steel and bronze.

Shown 16” to 32”H but new taller sizes in development

Tall Door Grips - How the Design Begins

Lately, in large part at the behest of designers, we have begun to design some very grand scaled door grips for the public areas of hotels and clubs. The size and shape of a door handle does influence the handles design, with long narrow grips dictating a more compact motif and with wider panels allowing for a more expansive forms.

In short, our designs for tall door grips fall broadly into these 2 categories and we have begun by focusing first on the more restrictive long thin pulls which one typically sees on storefront and bank doors and with lengths varying from 40” to 72”. We are using 60” as our optimum design canvas and are creating decorative segments of 18” and 24” that can be repeated or interspersed with other designs or plainer sections so that we have the capability of creating custom lengths for each project.

The segmented and narrow width of our design canvas impacts the freedom, balance and logic of our design. As a starting point Martin began by looking to the utilitarian and geometric shapes of the 1920’s Art Déco period and the influence of these repetitive bold lines can be seen in the sketch below. He also used his own Hedgerow furniture designs to create an angular tree branch motif.   These sketches are at this point concept drawings and we will be refining them over the next few weeks.