Vito Bila ‘narrative’

Since first seeing one of Vito’s silver vessels in Craft Victoria … perhaps in 2002 … I’ve very much admired his work. In fact, I’ve wished to add one of his fine silver vessels to my collection for years. Ah, maybe one day.

I happened to be in the area today and so on a whim popped in to see his masters exhibition ‘narrative‘.

photograph published with artist permission

Stunning.

photograph published with artist permission

I loved the paper studies on the left of the above image … magic. Naturally I also wanted the silver pieces above; and to my surprise also very much liked the piece in-between, which for some reason reminded me of a bronze-age kind of aesthetic.

Seeing such beautiful smithing like this makes me want to get back into smithing … it is such an enjoyable (though physically testing) task. It’s a shame there are hardly any places to learn smithing or practice it, as the sheer scale of the space needed and the many tools (hammers and stakes), not to mention the large annealing torches(!) seems prohibitive. If you know of anywhere I could practice smithing, like a space for some-time rent or such, please do let me know. [I notice that NMIT now has a smithing evening class … which is cool, but evening classes don’t suit me right now, though maybe next year.]

‘narrative’ by Vito Bila was at Monash University 18th – 20th September 2012.