Cool Iron Blog

July 20th, 1969 is a day that shall forever be etched in my memory. It was a beautiful day, bright with sunshine and my brothers and I decided to go out to a piece of land we always called the ‘Forty.’ There was a great patch of black caps; the berries were huge and a lot of fun to pick. I was fourteen years old and didn’t have a drivers license, but Mom and Dad let me drive the old truck all over the farm as long as I didn’t go out on the road. It was eight years earlier that President John F. Kennedy had declared that we would put a man on the moon, uttering those famous words “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” And this was the day when we fulfilled that promise by landing on the moon. On that day I had never felt so excited as the reports came over the truck radio; my whole body was tingling all over. Never have I felt so proud of my country as on that day. We were young, not a care in the world and all day it was like walking six inches high off the ground, no worries about the next hand railing job, iron art or bills. It was a great time to be a farm kid in America.

Gary

As I was driving to Amery listening to Elton John singing “Candle in the Wind” and thinking ‘what a great tribute to Marilyn Monroe,’ my mind started to drift to thinking about how this was going to be my last trip to Quality Powder Coating. All the years I’ve been going there, taking my wine racks, copper art and so forth to get coated, seem surreal. No longer will Bonnie be greeting me at the door always wondering what kind of new-fangled design I’ve made. It’s a shame that another small business is closing its doors so that they can build a bigger box store in its place. There are other places I can go to have my iron art coated but it won’t be the same without Tom and Bonnie being there. As I pulled into their driveway, I could see they had already taken down the combination birdbath/plant stand we made for them years before. After getting out of my truck and going to the door, there was Bonnie smiling with her ever joyful and friendly greeting:
“Hi Gary!” I had to turn away and wipe a tear from my eye.

Gary

If you’re looking to make your home classier, there is no better way to do it than with ornamental iron. It may be as simple as some hanging flower baskets with hand made plant hangers from a Cool Iron shop or you may want a personalized custom made wildlife
sign accented with plant stands on both ends. Take a look online under ‘custom iron work’ and see what is there. You can purchase plant hangers at big box stores and they will do just fine. But do you want to buy something that 10,000 other people have or would you prefer something that fits your unique style and taste? Whatever you choose, do it with our iron art because the ideas are endless. There is nothing more beautiful nor elegant than what iron art can do for your yard and house. Your home is your kingdom and the ways in which you can add beauty into your Camelot are boundless.

Gary

Working on iron art can be very frustrating. When you feel that you have a great design that will leave everybody wide-eyed and thinking “wow,” it’s like getting struck by a double bolt of lightning. The first bolt hits you and suddenly you have a new idea that will improve your design dramatically. But then a second bolt of realization hits you and you discover that you have to throw out a day’s work and start over. You don’t want to but you know in the back of your mind it’s the right thing to do and at times you don’t think you can do it but there is something that just keeps on pushing you forward like a bulldozer at your back. There is nothing that gets me all fired up like a new design; that’s what keeps me going! But you have to take the good with the bad. The other day I was out looking at my metal scrap pile and there were plenty of things that didn’t work out: an old birdbath, a defunct oriole feeder, an old pot rack and so on. But they weren’t complete wastes because I managed to learn something from every one of these mistakes.

Gary

My very best memories are of growing up on my parents’ dairy farm; at the time I had no idea how good I had it. We had two creeks that ran through the farm; one of them was full of speckled trout and nearly everyday my brothers and I would go fishing along with the neighbors. We’d bring our catch home and Mom would fry it up for supper. When we weren’t fishing we’d be in the woods looking for signs of wildlife, playing cowboys and robbers or looking for a pirate chest full of gold. Little did I realize it but our lives were full of great golden times then. My Mother would put a lot of love into her cooking and canning and there was always plenty of good food to eat. We would all sit down at the dinner table to eat and talk about our day. Looking outside we’d see lots of birds at the bird feeder; there was plenty enough for our feathered friends too. Those are some truly golden memories.

Gary

There is nothing that inspires me more than music; it’s almost like an addiction. A lot of my iron art has been designed under the influence of music; there is nothing that gets my creative juices flowing quite like it. Whatever it may be, a new ornamental iron wine rack or maybe garden art made of wrought iron, I know my best work is done while listening to music: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison; in their day together, they were creative perfection; that is something I strive for each and everyday in my art. Music the Beatles wrote and sang were songs of love and peace; I hope when people see my designs they’ll feel the same inner warmth and peacefulness within themselves.

Gary

Back in my early days of iron working, a lot of what I did looked like it belonged in King Arthur’s castle. Back then I was working in an old cow barn and I’d bring my latest piece to the house to show my family; I’d be so happy with it when my sons said it looked too Gothic, like something out of a medieval castle. I couldn’t help it; my love for black smiths of the Renaissance era was such an influence over me, it would come out in my work. I loved making Roman short swords and a long sword that I liked to call a two handed Mongolian salad chopper; boy it was wicked. I’ve changed my style since then, but you can still see some of the Renaissance influence in my work like my logo, banks, safes, wine storage boxes or pirate chests and other things to some degree. It’s a little harder to see it now but it’s still in me. And my sons, well they’re a lot happier with the way my art work looks these days.

Gary

Of all the things I create, wine racks are the thing I enjoy making the most. There is nothing that gets my creative energy going like a new design on a new wine rack. Although I have a light taste for wine, it’s a lot of fun to incorporate a design into a wine rack. There is a certain look that I try to achieve in my work, a look that I like to think of as romantic; achieving that warm romantic feeling in a customer’s home feels like hitting a home run. One of the simplest designs that can show your good tastes to house guests is a design that incorporates a wine rack into a pot rack with some glasses and a couple of candles. The next thing that I’ll be working on in the future are indoor/outdoor plant stands with wine racks incorporated into them. One thing that you can be sure of though is that no matter what kind of iron art we design, they will make great conversation pieces.

Gary

This week we launched our website!  As I’m sitting here writing, there are a thousand ideas racing through my mind; my heart is beating, maybe from a bit of fright, maybe from anticipation of what’s to come. From this day forth, I will do everything from designing to shipping. I strongly feel my very best ideas are yet to come. I hope people will let family and friends know about this site; I feel they will always find it interesting; after all, this is where Iron Becomes Art.