Primitive Brass

primitive

brass

primitive brass jason blasso

C H A RY B D I S P R E S S new york

Published by Charybdis Press New York 2017 Charybdis Press Some rights reserved Printed and bound in the USA 15 14 13 12 4 3 2 1 First Edition http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Pendants, writing, photos, layout and design by Jason Blasso primitive brass is set in gotham, CiscoSerif, Rockwell & Whitman www.charybdispress.com

for the old school benching mechanics with delicate sensibilities

INTRO Being precision sheet metal fabricators, my brother and I wanted to learn more about how sheet metal fabrication was done before complex machines like the NC turret punch press, laser, and water jets were invented and put on the market. So, we began doing some research on the techniques and my brother, being a gearhead, started reading up on how car panels were cut and formed using bead rollers, shrinker-stretchers, English wheels, and other equipment.

He nosed a bit deeper and learned about hammering and handforming which lead him to look online to see if any of these old manual machines were available for purchase. The best of the lot, a company by the name of Pexto, was, and still is, in business making good, durable equipment that outclassed the other cheap Chinese imports. We bought a bead roller from one of their distributors and, at about the same time, my brother found an old Pexto Benching Table for sale online. We drove to Staten Island to pick it up and haggled with the seller to include the dozen or so stakes that you slide into the table to bench parts. The table was made of robust, rich wood scored by years of use in an old technical college. The stakes were made of heavy cast iron and came in many different shapes: anvil, horn, and saddle. We didn’t know the use of any of them. So, we began researching their functions when we got the table back to the shop.

While I was reading up on the stakes, I began tooling around with some small brass pieces we had left over from a discontinued job. The end result is this Primitive Brass collection of pendants. Since it was my first attempt at making jewelry and using old metalforming equipment, the name seemed to fit the style and manner of its manufacture. One last thing to note: All the pendants started out as the flat piece you see on the cover. Enjoy.

primitive brass

ghost cape

phoenix fire

sun yolk

pelagic ripple

dawn light

king gingham

cosmic effervescence

the aleph

soul stroll

the crucible

yellow sails

cemetery vase

good fences

rolling boil

greek columns

womb door

storm clouds

deep space

elephant skin

frog spawn

greenman masque

desert dune

pond ripple

air foil

barn owl

hugin munin

finite flesh

new sinew

elemental fire

elemental water

elemental air

ice field

earth rise