Great Lakes Art Studio Breaks the Mold By Doing Whole Range of Metal Work

By Victoria Scott

Donna Zarbin-Byrne climbs a spiral staircase embellished with models of the metalwork she sculpted and cast at the Great Lakes Art Studio she and her husband own.

Beginning with its street address, which belies the fact that it actually fronts on an alley, this west Evanston atelier is full of surprises.

Those who toured the Great Lakes Art Studio (GLAS), 1614 Payne St., during Arts Festival Evanston saw a 21st-century blacksmith shop with gas-powered forges, an anvil and the arc-welding equipment required for metal fabrication.

But entering another time, visitors might have found the studio transformed, the blacksmith paraphernalia pushed aside to make way for sculpted clay forms and molds for the molten bronze used in metal casting.

GLAS is the rare studio that does it all - fabrication and casting, along with restoration of stair railings, furniture, antiques, architectural elements and sculpture. They realize both their own and others' designs.

The broad range of metal work at GLAS grew out of the collaboration of Richard Byrne and Donna Zarbin-Byrne, a husband-wife team whose vision for the studio dates back to their meeting in an artist's village in Israel in 1975.

After formal art training in the United States, Ms. Zarbin-Byrne, a sculptor, and Mr. Byrne, a founder and welder, established GLAS in Chicago in 1989. They intended the studio to be a fine-art foundry. But soon, she says, they were getting requests for hand-cast furniture.

"Chicago has such a rich architectural history and is such a big architectural design town," she says, explaining their evolution. The foundry soon met the challenge of producing functional, decorative objects as well as sculptures.

Three years ago the couple, longtime Evanston residents, found the Payne Street space for GLAS near their home. Its only limitation, she says, is that it limits them to using only part of their equipment at a time.

This October afternoon blacksmithing takes center stage. Sparks fly as Jason Stimps and Edward Giedrys bend to tack-weld decorative spirals inside the frame of a huge metal arch lying on its side in the middle of the floor. The arch's curled end, presently about a foot in length, started out as an eight-foot-long piece of metal, says Mr. Stimps. To heat it to the point where they could bend it, the two had to build a new forge, powered by natural gas and much larger than their small, propane-fed model.

Mr. Stimps, a self-taught metal worker, demonstrates their technique for the arch's decorative elements. First he heats a slim iron rod red-hot in the small forge. He moves it to an air hammer, which flattens it. Then he heats it again, hammering it against the anvil to coax it into a graceful curl.

The arch is the first of seven commissioned by a landscape architect for a Lake Forest estate. The designer gave the studio some freedom with his idea, says Mr. Stimps, stipulating only, "Make it look good." Their prototype hangs on the wall. Just beyond the raised gas pipe that runs to the big forge are a dozen or more 6-inch-wide iron bands, laid on their sides on the concrete, awaiting the forge.

Ms. Zarbin-Byrne easily negotiates this obstacle course en route to a second-floor office that overlooks the shop. There she lays out a portfolio of photographs. Much of their work involves "helping other people fulfill their visions," she says, with GLAS executing others' designs.

Among the photos are doors produced to an architect's specs for his renovation of an art deco building in Chicago. Creating the steel and bronze doors required both the forge (to heat and bend metal) and the foundry (to sculpt and cast) at GLAS.

In the book are pictures of an architect-designed art deco table, bronze with crystal legs and a stone top, and a "Giacommeti bed," whose posts are cast figures reminiscent of the Swiss artist's. There is a series of bronze counters that begin in a kitchen and meander through the house.

Among Ms. Zarbin-Byrne's own designs is the bronze stair railing she created for an athletic client with a taste for figurative art. Female figures seem to dance up the steps, then reach the landing and rest, seated, with their legs hanging down over the stairs.

Using the lost-wax casting method, Ms. Zarbin-Byrne sculpted the figures in clay. Then she made a rubber mold (the negative), poured wax into it (a positive) and formed a ceramic mold (another negative) around the wax. She put the ceramic mold into the kiln to harden while the wax burned out. Last, she ladled molten bronze into the ceramic mold, and when it cooled, broke the mold to unleash the sculpture.

An upcoming episode of House and Garden TV's "Designers' Challenge" will feature a fireplace surround fabricated of steel at GLAS and chemically treated to look like higher-priced bronze. Mr. Byrne and Ms. Zarbin-Byrne specialize in such patinas, chemical processes that change the color and texture of metals.

Occasionally Ms. Zarbin-Byrne gets to execute her own design from start to finish. Such was the case with "Aqua Vita," the bronze sculpture on the lawn of Emerson Avenue Fire Station No. 1, and with the three-dimensional rendering of an illuminated manuscript she sculpted and cast for the doors of a North Shore synagogue.

A new GLAS website will feature a store with stock items like the deep garden chair that beckons from a corner of the studio. Ms. Zarbin-Byrne, who enjoys the variety of her work, does long to "work in people's gardens. I like whimsical projects," she says.
See more at www.greatlakesartstudio.com.

Construction Begun on Howard Street High-Rise

Bristol Chicago Development LLC recently announced that it has begun construction of a $55-million, 221-unit luxury rental tower in Evanston on Howard Street. Local officials expect the building to play a significant role in the continued redevelopment of the Howard Street corridor in Evanston.

The development, named Howard Street Station, was designed by the architectural firm of Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz & Associates, Inc. and will be built by Weis Builders, Inc. Bristol Chicago expects to complete the project by May 2008. In addition to private investment, the development received $5 million in tax-increment financing (TIF) that will be amortized over 14 years.

"This development is the largest investment ever on the Evanston side of Howard Street and may be the most important real estate project in 100 years in south Evanston.

"Between the quality of the development, its proximity to the soon-to-be-improved Howard CTA station, the Howard Street Station development will serve as an anchor for ongoing economic development on the Evanston and Chicago sides of Howard Street," said Alderman Ann Rainey, 8th Ward.

"It's important to recognize the leadership shown by City staff, and the support of Mayor Lorraine Morton and the entire City Council to make this development a reality," she added.

Eager to Work

These three industrious teens took part in the job fair on Oct. 12, an annual event sponsored by the Youth Job Center of Evanston. Many employers turned out to meet the youth and hand them job applications.

 

 

Photo by Chris Cascarano.

Fair Trade in Chocolate at 10,000 Villages

"Chocolate October," a free celebration of fair-trade chocolate, will take place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Oct. 28, at Ten Thousand Villages, 719 Main St.

For decades, says Ten Thousand Villages, thousands of children and young adults in West Africa have been enslaved on cocoa plantations, where they are starved, beaten, imprisoned and forced to labor in the fields for no pay. Chocolate under the rubric "fair trade" has been produced by fairly paid workers rather than slaves. For more information, call Susanne Donoghue or Cheryl Nester-Detweiler at 847-733-8258.

Oakton Development Progressing

While working through the City's planning and approval process for its proposed retail development at 2424 Oakton St., the Lee Fry Company has allowed other companies to store machinery on the mostly cleared parcel of land just west of the City's animal shelter.

 If approved, the development would have retail and office space, a self-storage facility, a gas station and parking, said project manager Amy Fry. "We're looking for a variety of tenants, including a unique family restaurant and an ice-cream shop," she said, adding that they will probably have no specific tenants to announce until after they have received City approval.
 
"We want to make it attractive to families who come to James Park. They can leave their cars and walk on over," Ms. Fry said. "It's a beautiful park and a nice neighborhood - a nice location."
 
The company is seeking some zoning consideration from the City, including a height allowance of 50 feet for one of the eight new buildings it proposes to build there. The rendering above, courtesy of Lee Fry, shows the front elevation of the main building.