A vase ringed with razor-sharp knives

Machinist-sculptor Chris Bathgate (previously) has unveiled his latest: a vase ringed with razor-sharp knives ("an object that mischievously demands that it be appreciated for more than its precarious utility").

Bathgate is one of the rare artists who can cogently and interestingly discuss his conceptual process as well as the (literal, in this case) nuts and bolts of his work (anyone who's ever waded through an "artist's statement" at a gallery show knows what I mean). In his description of the impetus for this work, he talks about how different crafts -- "glasswork, woodturning, and ceramics" -- were originally high-tech factory processes that became artistic, and in so doing, acquired characteristic "craft forms" that "tell the craft's particular history." He set out to think about what a craft form for machining might be.

In so doing he arrived at knife-making -- a historic decorative and practical metalworking project -- and contrasting a them with a canonical decorative craft form: the vase.

Even more interesting is Bathgate's description of the process of machining knives, working with harder steel that he was used to, and the special challenges this creates for people making sculpture, rather than tools.

Another process I had little experience with was heat-treating and hardening steel. While this is something that toolmakers and machine designers are quite familiar, as a sculptor, it just isnt something I had much of a need for, until now.

Heat-treating is fascinating for many reasons; chief among them is that it makes much of the metal work I do possible.