ARTES MAGAZINE

Michael Aram’s Handcrafted Metals Use Traditional Indian Methods

Posted on 7 November 2009 | By Carolina Fernandez

Little did Michael Aram know the role that providence would play in his life while on a trip to India twenty years ago. As a recent college grad with a degree in fine arts and a care-free style, a trip to New Delhi to visit a sister and some friends seemed like a splendid idea. But, Aram’s trip was going to be different—on this trip he would discover his ‘true life’s work’.

On arrival, his senses were first piqued by the distinct, yet odd aroma of baking molasses! He would soon learn that this unusual ingredient was used in a sand casting process. He sought out one local craftsman in particular, who spent hours turning metal into utilitarian objects like scissors or buckets. The beauty of the finished products and the creative process used to create them caught him completely by surprise. The skill of these local artisans reflected a hand-wrought aesthetic often hidden by the locals to disguise the fact that each piece was, in fact, crafted by hand. Aram recalls these early, seminal experiences as ‘mind-blowing’. Over a period of weeks, he wandered the streets of New Delhi, visiting craftsmen, watching the casting process, listening to the sounds of metal being hammered and experimenting with simple designs. Soon, India would become a second home to Aram and the craftsmen’s ovens would serve as crucibles for his own imagination.

 

Working among local artisans with a series of drawings, Aram guided the creation of dozens of different objects. His first: a shoe horn scratched with a stick in the dirt, for a local artisan to craft using time-honored techniques. To his amazement, Aram soon held a faithfully-rendered version of his concept in his hands.

 

 Returning to New York City in the late 1980’s, he was delighted to discover that these hand-crafted pieces, in fact, had strong commercial appeal. A mere twenty-five years old, Aram got a ‘lucky break’ when Neiman Marcus chose his artisan twig cutlery for the cover of its Christmas catalog. He sold 16,000 sets; establishing him in his first year of business as the premiere American artist to intersect decorative metal arts, utilizing organic forms. Other early successes quickly followed: retailers like Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue and Barney’s. “My heart has always been in organic forms– twigs, flowers, leaves,” notes Aram, twenty years after his first commercial breakthrough. Encapsulating his love of nature in stainless steel, copper and bronze was ‘cutting edge’ then and quickly became Aram’s design  signature.

 

 

 

Aram admits that he, “always recognized India as the land of ‘one billion people with one billion ideas’–each one crafted by hand, meaning no two objects are identical. I appreciated the fact that the Indian artisan could put ‘the mark of the maker’ on each piece, in a way that artisans in other areas of the Asia-Pacific rim could not. The workmen there are able to take a piece that needs to be massed-produced in order for it to be commercially viable, and yet complete it in a way that preserves the integrity of its hand-craftsmanship,” notes Aram emphatically. Soon, he had become a driving force in the cottage industry of Indian artisans.

 

 

 Today, twenty years later, Aram divides his time between New Delhi and New York City, living and working in each city from homes and workshops that embrace his signature style. Fluent in Hindi and well aware of the needs of local artisans, Aram’s influence there cannot be underestimated. Twice voted Indian Designer of the Year, he is as happy working on private commissions as he is creating affordable pieces for a worldwide base. Asked what drives him artistically today, Aram responds that, “New projects jazz me up. I love working in fine jewelry. Mixing precious and semi-precious stones with gold brings beauty to my daily experience. Communicating the design is my over-arching preoccupation. I never want to become complacent,” says this talented and gracious man. “I always desire to find things of beauty and to try to re-create them for mankind. I want to bring up the next generation to desire the same”.

 

And that first shoehorn, silently yet skillfully rendered with a stick in the dirt of New Delhi in 1989, is still sold in boutiques and retail establishments around the world, hand-forged in the metal that defines Michael Aram, Inc.

by Carolina Fernandez, Contributing Writer

 To learn more about these and other objects in the Michael Aram Collection, go to:

http://www.michaelaram.com

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