Proving His Metal

Wearing a blue wool cap to fight off the chill in his spare, 1,200-sqare-foot studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, James Reynolds climbs onto a three-foot-high, nine-foot-long worktable and brandishes what looks like an oversize ice pick. As strains of Glenn Gould blare in the background, the soft-spoken artist holds the giant spike in both hands, leans his shoulder into its wooden dowel handle and slowly scores a design into a four-foot-long sheet of copper. He uses the spike to outline his design—a classically inspired scene of acanthus leaves, grape vines and flowers—and a picture gradually takes shape. “This is the tricky part,” explains Reynolds, as he continues working the copper, forcing it into shape with his spike, then an old brass doorknob and then a handful of ball-peen tools. “I’m working blind and in reverse.”

Every few minutes he flips the copper over to make sure he’s following his elegant design, which he has transferred with grease pen to the front of the sheet. He will push out the high parts from the back, then, after heating the copper with a blowtorch to soften it, work in the finer details.

So far, so good. It’s painstakingly slow, exacting work; copper is an unforgiving medium. One mistake, one haphazard slip and he will have to begin again. But Reynolds, one of the nation’s best-known masters of the art of repoussé, rarely makes a mistake.

Repoussé, from the French for “pushed up,” is an age-old technique in which a sheet of metal (Reynolds works mainly in copper and stainless steel) is shaped by being formed or hammered from the reverse side. Also called embossing or chasing, the technique dates back to at least 3000 B.C. and has been used by nearly every civilization. The Statue of Liberty, in fact, is copper repoussé.

Reynolds discovered repoussé by chance. After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design with a degree in glass from the sculpture department, he traveled to Mexico to enroll in a ceramics class in San Miguel de Allende. “They were full,” remembers Reynolds, “so I enrolled in the school’s tinsmithing course.”

The class was a revelation. “I thought, ‘This is it!’ ” says Reynolds. “I loved the way repoussé combined drawing, sculpture and painting. I knew I had found my medium.” Ironically, when he returned home he realized that what he calls a “strange-looking set of artist’s tools,” which he had been given when he was eleven and had been stored away ever since, were actually repoussé tools. The forty-six-year-old artist uses them to this day.

Reynolds started selling repoussé items in New England’s high-end craft market, and he soon began receiving large-scale private and commercial architectural commissions. He has done scores of projects for homes, creating everything from bas-relief copper backsplashes to stainless-steel refrigerator panels to decorative copper panels. His work has been featured on Royal Caribbean Cruise ships, in Central Park’s Loeb Boathouse, at the University Club in Providence and elsewhere. “Jim’s work is unique, elegant and timeless,” says Providence-based designer Susan Symonds. “Wherever it is, it becomes the focal point. It’s like putting the cherry on a sundae.”

Reynolds enjoys collaborating with designers and homeowners. “It’s very, very exciting to explore the many possibilities of repoussé with a client,” he says.

For the kitchen of Susie and Bob Clendenen’s bed and breakfast in Wakefield, Rhode Island, Reynolds designed a stainless-steel triptych that features an image of a stone birdbath. “It stops everyone in their tracks,” says Susie. “The detail, the motion of the water is amazing. It’s as fabulous as any painting, and I never get tired of looking at it.”

For inspiration, Reynolds pores through his library of books and the thousands of pictures he has taken of museum pieces on his frequent trips to Europe. “I steal from everyone,” he admits with a smile. A recent residential client wanted a kitchen backsplash with an “abstract representation” of fruit. Reynolds “lifted” figs from an Egyptian low-relief tomb wall he spotted in New York’s Metropolitan Museum and combined them with flourishes and details he saw on a fresco in the ancient Roman town of Herculaneum. “There’s a reason these classical works have stood the test of time,” he says. “They’re beautiful. I’d be crazy not to use them.”

His clients agree that there is something timeless about Reynolds’s classically inspired work. It’s in the style, the execution and the form itself. But there’s more. On a recent trip to Pompeii and Rome he was struck by the beauty of the frescoes and mosaics that covered so many of the ancient homes there. “I felt a kind of kinship with those artisans,” he admits. “Someone was hired to do those walls and floors, and I imagined them coming into the owners’ homes with their drawings tucked under their arms, just like I do. It made me realize that I work alone but I’m not alone.”

Because Reynolds works entirely by hand, eschewing molds, stamps or dies, each piece is unique. A skilled draftsman, his sense of line is accomplished and elegant. “James is an excellent artist,” says Symonds. “His design sketches are so beautiful he could sell them if he wanted to.”

One of his evocative pieces, View of Time, #3, was recently purchased for the RISD Museum of Art’s permanent collection, and the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts, recently held an exhibit of his personal and commercial creations. “James is using a traditional technique but is bringing it to a whole new level,” says the museum’s director, Gretchen Keyworth.

One of Reynolds’s most enthusiastic clients commissioned him to create custom-made refrigerator panels for her home on Long Island Sound. Each is stainless steel and features a pair of herons. He also included other birds, sea grasses and fish in backsplashes that run around the perimeter of the kitchen. “Kitchens are just kitchens, but Jim adds personality to a room,” says the homeowner. “But best of all, he brings life into a room with his art. You can’t ask for more than that.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Prices for James Reynolds’s work range from $250–$350 per square foot. He can be reached at (401) 454-7777 or through his Web site, www.jamesreynoldsmetalwork.com.