News

Thank you to all those who supported IDC in 2011, your purchases and publications made our year.

Our Wine Racks are featured in the October issue of Beijing's Sunshine magazine, a fashion publication. Special thanks to Amy Meng for seeking us out.

Also, visit the design/craft website Handful of Salt for an article composed by guest curator Ray McKenzie. The article includes our Candlesticks and a handful of other work. Thanks Ray.

Check out the November issue of Food and Wine magazine to find our Mezzaluna displayed in an article featuring hand-made cookware. Special thanks to writer Kristin Donnelly for seeking us out and composing the review.

Recently returned from teaching a short workshop at the Haystack School of Crafts in Deer Isle, ME. In the Fall, Haystack offers the great opportunity of working with one's hands to the local high schools. The students in my blacksmithing workshop each designed and created a finished mobile.

Look up Haystack School of Crafts for more workshop information.

Check out the August/September issue of American Craft Magazine for a two page spread on our ironwork (pages 14 & 15). Titled Strike a Balance, the feature displays a handful of images and dives into Marc's introduction to blacksmithing. Special thanks to senior editor Julie Hanus for composing the article.

American Craft Magazine: Strike a Balance

Special thanks to Francois Roy and Plaisirs de Vivre (living with style) for featuring our Andiron in their May issue. The article titled Room to Move presents ten items "whose uplifting designs are bound to bring joy to jaded souls". Great magazine, be sure to investigate.

May issue of Plaisirs de Vivre

The National Ornamental Metals Museum in Memphis, TN hosts a handful of small solo exhibitions (called Tributaries) throughout the year to showcase innovative metalwork. Marc will display a summary of two recent groups of work Draw and Settle, in addition to a newly made gate for the upcoming 40 under 40 at the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Tributaries: Marc Maiorana will be on view May 13-July 7, 2011
Come out to the opening May 20th and say hi, we will be there!

More Metal Museum info

Marc's ironwork will be included in the exhibition: 40 Under 40: Craft Futures at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum July 20, 2012. Each participating artist's work will be acquired by the museum for its permanent collection; Marc will be making a small custom gate for the event. Craft Futures will tour nationally after the exhibition closes in Washington, D.C.

40 under 40: Craft Futures
Renwick Gallery
July 20, 2012 - February 3, 2013

Visit the Renwick Gallery for more info

Washington Post article featuring Marc

Special thanks to Charlotte Bakker, editor of the Netherlands lifestyle magazine FD Persoonlijk, for her keen eye and featuring us in their latest issue.

The traveling jewelry and blacksmithing exhibit Different Tempers is on show for the last time at the University of Texas at El Paso. The survey of contemporary metal work includes two sculptures by Marc, and has been traveling since 2009. Different Tempers was curated by Metalsmith magazine editor Suzanne Ramljak and organized by The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, a regional center of the University of North Carolina.

January 27 - March 26 2010 / Opening January 27, 2010

Many thanks to all the various design blogs and websites that have featured our work. Here is a current sampling from the web of Iron Design Company hosts.

Check them out-

and happy two thousand eleven-

Check out our new Firewood Holder design! Made from one piece of curved steel (complete with pine runners to protect the floor).

30 x 8 x 13 inches

Come visit us at the 16 Hands Studio Tour in Floyd, VA this holiday weekend November 26-28th. Floyd, VA is home to a handful of artisans in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains who open their studios twice a year to host a sale and invite guest artists to participate. We will be graciously hosted by potter Silvie Granatelli.

Visit the 16 Hands Studio Tour web-site for maps and everything Floyd.

Opening this November, the recently completed luxury hotel The Setai in New York City will feature our commissioned Andiron in their lobby fireplace. Found at 400 Fifth Avenue, The Setai soars more than 60 stories above the famed Midtown stretch of Manhattan's Fifth Ave.

Also, Iron Design Company will be a guest artist at the 16 Hands Studio Tour in Floyd, VA on November 26-28th.
More details at: 16 Hands

Castings and Forgings News contacted and featured Iron Design Company and our products in their October newspaper. Based in the Netherlands, Castings and Forgings News covers the latest developments in the global industrial metals trade, and with each issue reserves space in their periodical for interesting metal designers. We were also in luck with our timing, as CFN is distributing their newspaper at a couple of October trade shows.

E-mail us if you would like to read the article: info@irondesigncompany.com

Rebus Works gallery in Raleigh, NC is hosting an invitational Iron exhibition, showcasing a handful of contemporary iron mongers. Our similarly flowing Wine and Coat Rack are included in the exhibition. Opening reception Oct 9th 5-8pm.

For those near by, stop in and see the show.
For those not near by: www.rebusworks.us

Occasionally we take on a custom architectural project, and featured here is a recently completed patio gate. Fully functional, the design seemingly submits to the forces that usually requires gates to be physically and visually heavy. The gate resides now in North Carolina after being built in our Virginia studio. We have the capabilities to design and build custom projects anywhere and work closely with clients throughout the process, from sketches to installation.

Just returned home from teaching a two week session at the Penland School of Crafts. The most amazing moment, among many, came in the last hour of shop time, when the class pulled a group forge weld. Forge welding is when you join separate pieces of steel by heating them very hot and hammering them together. Eight students independently heated their bars to heat, ran across the shop to one common anvil, and the class assistant struck down to join all bars into one. We erupted in cheer and high fives, exhilarated by the feat and the sparks and the coming together represented by the resulting iron star.

Thanks sixth session iron!

Click here for a video of the forge weld (scroll down to the 5th video)

The latest issue of the Dutch Audi Magazine features our Wine Rack as one of four items chosen for the Design section. Special thanks to writer Lucas Boot for his keen eye and reaching out to us.

Here is the translation:

Why hide your bottles of wine in a dark cellar? With this Wine Rack from the American Iron Design Company you save your Spatburgunders and Rieslings on the wall with style. The rack is capable of carrying six bottles and is made from recycled metal.

AOL interviewed Marc and featured our Wine Rack this week on their popular home living and design web-site: rented spaces.

Here is a portion of the article:

"Don't let the picture fool you. The shape of the rack is pre-formed and made out of powder-coated steel. A little eye trickery was a bit what the designers had in mind. "Our specialty is giving grace to a bold, stubborn building material," Maiorana explains."

Our Andiron kicks off it's 3-year traveling exhibition debut this weekend at the opening reception for Iron: Twenty Ten at the National Ornamental Metal Museum. Iron: Twenty Ten is "a survey of the finest contemporary blacksmithing in the United States. Employing both traditional and innovative approaches, the selected work demonstrates the tremendous breadth of ideas and depth of talent found in American blacksmithing today."

Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, 2011
University Museum, Southern Illinois University, 2012

Visit the Metal Museum for more

You can now find our forged candlesticks at the Museum of Art and Design Store on Columbus Circle in NYC. The Store offers products that celebrate the artist, material use, workmanship and design.

To learn about exhibitions, happenings, and Store items visit: Museum of Art and Design

Robyn and I just want to say thanks to everyone who visited us in NYC at the Architectural Digest Home Design Show. We met tons of great people in and out of the trade, had fun with fellow exhibitors, and even caught up with family.

If you weren't able to attend, you missed the unveiling of our new walnut and steel Book Stand (featured here).

Iron Design Company will be exhibiting and selling at the Architectural Digest Home Design Show coming up in NYC. Find us at booth M33 in the MADE section, an area devoted to limited edition and original furnishings.

March 18-21, 2010

Thurs: 10 am- 6pm (Design trade and VIP guests)
Sat- Sun: 10 am- 6 pm
Fri: 10 am- 7pm

Visit: archdigesthomeshow.com for more info

The traveling jewelry and blacksmithing exhibit Different Tempers is on display in Memphis at the National Ornamental Metal Museum. Curated by Suzanne Ramljak, editor of Metalsmith magazine, the exhibition explores these two realms of metalsmithing to highlight their distinct properties as well as their commonalities.

February 5 - March 28, 2010

Visit: the Metal Museum to read more

Look for our Coat Rack in the February issue of Icon magazine, an architecture, design, and culture magazine based in the UK.

Find the magazine and read more: Iconeye

A handful of Book Sconces are hanging in the new exhibition: Iron: Forged, Tempered, Quenched at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.

"The exhibition is one of the most significant exhibitions of blacksmithed objects in decades." - Gwynne Rukenbrod, Curator of Fine Craft at HCCC

Visit: Iron to read more

For the second week in a row, Dwell magazine online has featured IDC ironwork. This week our Tension Candlestick is in the spotlight. Visit Dwell.com to see the candlesticks on display.

Free Shipping
Free shipping until the year end.

Dwell magazine's online product spotlight was on our Wood Rack this past week. Incase you missed the subscriber letter of the week's highlights, visit the Product page at Dwell.com to see our iron in residence.

Free Shipping

Free Shipping continues till the end of the year.

Until January 1, 2010 we are offering free shipping on all orders under $500.

Haystack Scholarship Auction

Haystack Mountain School of Crafts is having an auction to support it's scholarship students. Haystack's auction is being held for the first time on E-bay and features work by 30 previous faculty members, including myself. Scroll down the thumbnails to find a pair of our Book Sconces on the auction block. Auction ends Thursday!

Pictured: Fire Set

Until January 1, 2010 we are offering free shipping on all orders under $500.

Last weekend we had a great time in Richmond, VA at the Craft and Design Show displaying our ironwork. The front of the display was an homage to an oncoming winter season, featuring our Andiron, Wood Rack, and Fire Set (pictured).

The 45th Craft + Design Show returns to the magnificent Rotunda at the Science Museum of Virginia, located at 2500 W. Broad Street. Iron Design Company will be set up at booth 26 selling items from the web-site plus a new fireplace set.

2009 Craft + Design Show Hours

Friday, November 20: Patrons Preview, 6-9 PM (for VisArts Patron level members only)
Saturday, November 21: Open to the public 10 AM-6 PM
Sunday, November 22: Open to the public 11 AM-5 PM

Visit: visarts.org

The Guild Sourcebook of Art showcases site-specific architectural and interior artworks for public and corporate clients, as well as custom-designed, limited-edition, and one-of-a-kind works for the home. Printed yearly, 12,000 sourcebooks are distributed to interior designers, architects, and consultants throughout the United States and Canada.

Our page features a pair of Book Sconces and a hand railing commissioned by the Penland School of Crafts, both of which can be found here on the web-site.

Scroll around the site and you'll notice a few new changes. In addition to a new layout, you can now purchase IDC items through the website. When looking at an item, the link in the lower left hand column will take you to a pricelist and then to check out.

Last weekend we traveled to the Penland School of Crafts to honor artist and educator L. Brent Kington. In 1970 Brent hosted the first university blacksmithing conference and established the only university program in blacksmithing at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. I am among many graduates who owe their education to Brent and continue to be inspired by his words and work. Visit a current retrospective of his iron at the Illinois State Museum:

L. Brent Kington: Mythic Metalsmith

Last Fall we worked on a railing project for Frank Konhaus and Ellen Cassilly's new home in Chapel Hill, NC and today their home was featured in the New York Times. In addition to the home, they documented the railing in print and on-line.

Check it out at NYTimes.com

Just returned from teaching a blacksmithing class in Deer Isle, Maine at the Haystack School of Crafts. Great class, weather, and local beer.

For more info visit:
Haystack School of Crafts

Good meeting everyone in DC. We sold out of this coat rack at the Smithsonian Craft Show in late April, find more details in the Furniture category.

Also, extra images posted for the Wine Sconce and Andiron.

Check out the pictured wine rack in the Kitchen tab and our andiron under the Fireplace tab. Both caught the attention of many architects and interior designers during this year's Baltimore ACC show.

Off to Atlanta.

Check out our Book Sconces featured as Dwell magazine's PRODUCT OF THE DAY at www.dwell.com

The Book Sconces have been getting lots of attention recently, in addition to Dwell they were recently installed at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art as part of the city wide
celebration of New Orleans called Prospect 1.

Find a Book Sconce and other Iron Design Company items at the following shows
this spring:

ACC Baltimore Craft Show, February 27th- March 1st
ACC Atlanta Craft Show, March 13th-15th
Smithsonian Craft Show, April 23rd- 26th

The news blog will announce newly introduced items, events, and venues.

In February, we snagged an Excellence Award at the Baltimore Craft Show. Since then our forged spatula has been featured in Gourmet magazine's online product review and our iron wares are now available at the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design.