Beetles in the fictional world of Martin Pierce

A lesser-known area of Martin Pierce’s work is the fictional world occupied by insect and humanoid bronze creatures. To better show these sculptures we are adding new pages to our site and will be creating a new collection page and eventually a payment portal.

Since childhood Martin has been  fascinated by  insects and birds and not just by their obvious beauty but by their ingenuity and dexterity. Wasps, butterflies, moths, and swallows are represented in our company’s door hardware and cabinet hardware collections. However, the scale of  door hardware as well as the functional limitations relegate these forms to incidental turn pieces, thumb latches or cabinet pieces. 

As Martin’s art work is not subject to the same restraints he is using this new freedom to re-imagine both the scale of humans to insects as well as their functional and social relationships.

In December 2021 Martin sourced a deceased aqua blue horned rhinoceros dung beetle from a New Mexico  entomologist. Known affectionately to friends  as Phanaeus Pilatei this particular insect is beautifully colored and powerfully built. The powerful front plate and horn is used as a soil digger that is as proportionately powerful as a bob-cat shovel or bulldozer blade.  Alas, the beauty and mechanical dexterity of Phanaeus is rarely appreciated due to his diminutive size. In Martin’s sculptures and paintings he hopes to shine a light on these undervalued scarabs by portraying then as larger than life and by developing a story that he hopes will be captivating.

True size of Dung beetle 3/4”L x 1/2”H New Model for Dung Sculpture 10”L x 6”H Other Beetle Sculptures

Scaly breasted munia and Bulbul Sightings Hollywood Hills

In April 2020 we posted our sightings of the Black crested Red-whiskered Bulbul in our garden and this wonderful bird continues to flourish. To our delight this year flowers from our guava tree have been feeding a couple as they build a nest in a fellow birder neighbors tree. One of the few upsides to the pandemic was the time we and other neighbors compared sightings and notes on birds in our Hollywood Hills neighborhood and thanks to one neighbor we have now spotted the Scaly-breasted Munia. The Munia also known as the Spice Finch or Nutmeg Mannikin is a pretty chestnut colored bird with scale like breast feathers and is a gregarious one that tends to be seen in small groups. While we have not noticed this bird until now, it is a well-established non-indigenous species that thrives in sufficient numbers as to be counted on the California State Bird’s List.
As can be seen from the photos here, the Munia is more than happy to eat seeds from a bird feeder and the seed level drops significantly when the flock stop by.

Animal themed door or grand cabinet handle

When we replaced our water starved grass garden with drought resistant vegetation we were concerned that this would reduce the birds who frequent it but the contrary has proven true.
Our prolific honeysuckle and Kangaroo paw plant attracts countless Rufus and Anna Hummingbirds and the magnificent flower of our variegated Agaves attract yellow rumped warblers.
While not as striking in color, our feathered double headed bird door pull does possess drama and texture and is a central piece in our cabinet hardware collection.

A touch of color in time for Easter

As Easter approaches we wish you all a merry time and if you are lucky enough to live in Los Angeles then we hope you too will enjoy the wonderful warm days that are upon us.

The arrival of Spring has seen the arrival of colorful orders at Martin Pierce Hardware, and we wanted to share these lovely pieces with you.

The order shown here is an interesting collection of branch and flying insects all finished with an amber hot patina, applied by hand and at a safe arm’s length from the blow torch used to heat the bronze.

If you look closely you will see that the small butterflies also have dot eye markings on their wings a characteristic of many butterflies possibly used to attract a mate or deter a predator.

We have recently updated our website to show our unusual cabinet pulls form different perspectives and in 2 different finishes. The hot amber patina is available as a special-order patina.

All these pieces can be seen in our revised cabinet pull web pages and in our new digital catalogue.

HAPPY 4TH JULY

HAPPY 4TH JULY

A recent art piece inspired this flighty moth motif flag. If you look closely you will see that the stars have morphed into bronze butterflies.

View our other art works.

Nesting Birds and Their Noisy Ways

While our lives may have been disrupted by the corona virus, this has not impacted our local bird life and our neighborhood is very much alive with the sounds of squabbling and aggressive birds. Mockingbirds have made a nest in the bougainvillea bush in our neighbors garden and the parents are feeding their young with petals from our guava tree and battling and haranguing any potential predators that come too close to their young chicks. The predators who pose a threat include squirrels and cats who despite their claws and size are no match for the mockingbird bombers who dive and peck them ceaselessly.

Alert Parent of young Mocking Bird chicks on guard for predators

These admirable parenting qualities are not limited to the mocking birds and a pair of scrub jays, thankfully nesting in a different tree, spend large amounts of time battling and diving at crows, ravens and the occasional Cooper’s hawk who are local habitants of the Hollywood Hills.
We have lived in the hills for many years but never grow tired of the local bird population which continues to inspire our work. What is still remarkable is the incredible variety of bird life that we see and hear, and which vary with the season’s migratory paths. The beautiful oriels with their orange chests have arrived as have the rufous hummingbirds and both compete for the sugary solution of our bird feeder. To accommodate the oriels larger and wider beak we have removed some of the artificial flowers on the feeder which occasionally results in the odd bee finding its way inside.

Juvenile Mocking Bird Learning the Value of Guava Flowers

If you are searching for an unusual bird cabinet pull or possible a jay door handle then you may want to visit these pages on our site.

Black Crested Red Whiskered Bulbul

With more time to walk we are able to see more Bulbuls in the Hollywood hills and have managed to photograph several.
We first encountered this petite bird with colorful markings in the 1990’s at the Huntington gardens and felt quite privileged to site this bird that we have always associated with Asia and tropical environments. What we hadn’t realized was that the Bulbul was a common resident of the park in the 1970’s and 80’s and was on the A list as a non-indigenous species and destined for eradication. Thankfully sufficient public and birder opposition resulted in the suspension of this policy and now we enjoy this cheery musical creature in our own neighborhood.

I had a great deal of fun reading about the bird’s diet and habitat on Wikipedia and as a result know this passerine bird to be a fugivore. For those unfamiliar with these terms they simply mean that this is a bird that likes to perch and lives on a fruit diet. As a frugivore it makes sense that the Bulbul now thrives in Florida and southern California where fruit is abundant.
While the Bulbul is named for its small red-whiskers the males back crest and red abdominal feathers are much easier to spot as can be seen here. Like all passerines the Bulbul has three toes that point forward and one pointing back which makes perching an easy task.
If you are looking for a less flighty bird and one that you would like to use as a cabinet pull then consider the swallow pull or if you are searching for a wall statement check out our bronze jay bird.

To read more about the Bulbul’s near eradication please the article by Mary Barker


For those seeking to improve their ornithological knowledge or looking for words for Scrabble Wikipedia is great resource.

Happy Halloween

Fear not this Halloween our bats will not entangle your hair nor slippery toads crawl up your legs as our creatures are cast in weighty bronze.

Let the witching hour commence!

Gold Cabinet Pulls or Polished Bronze?

When is gold truly gold and when is it polished bronze? This is a tongue in cheek question and the answer reflects (pun intended) the high luster and jewel like appearance of polished bronze.
While we do occasionally gold plate our door hardware and while this clearly adds value to the item, for many, the appearance of gold is what is needed to create an accent to cabinetry.
Bronze is an alloy containing copper and this is what makes it a golden color. Copper and Gold are both elements on the Periodic table Cu and Au respectively and while they are both malleable and were used by early man they differ considerably in terms of scarcity and hence cost. A visit to https://www.jlab.org/ revealed that the “name Copper comes from the Latin Cuprum meaning “from the Island of Cyprus” which is where the Romans obtained the majority of their copper ore. The name gold comes from the Sanskrit word Jval and the Anglo-Saxon word gold.” Gold and bronze are both very soft mediums and in the case of silicon bronze tin and silicon are adding to copper to create a harder more durable alloy.

Frog Cabinet Pulls Polished Bronze

To create a highly polished surface the casting goes through 3 stages of progressively finer buffing;
First, we buff it using a high strength non-woven nylon disk on a mechanized buffing wheel, as the disk is not woven it is pliable and can buff irregular shapes. The material of the disk contains aluminum oxide a mineral that makes sharp very fine cuts into the surface of the bronze which helps to create consistent brush marks over the entire surface. We use a medium grit disk made by Standard Abrasives.
The piece is then hand polished using a 400-grit fine wet/dry sandpaper.
Lastly, we buff the pull on a cloth buffing wheel. Buffing compound is applied to the edge of the rotating cloth disk and when sufficiently coated the pull is pressed against the edge of the disk to create a high luster.

The Design Process for Door Handles

Creating door hardware is a balancing act where artistic inspiration is balanced and refined to meet the practical demands of functionality.

Continuing from last weeks post I want to share some of the initial designs that were submitted to designer Debbie Zylstra for her client’s home in Kailua-Kona. Debbie was in the process of designing a home entertainment center in Koa wood and wanted to incorporate dramatic door pulls for sliding doors. The cabinet was grand in scale at a height of 9’ and the lizard heroic handles were considered as a possibility. These pieces are extremely realistic, and the client wanted something more stylized and original but in the reptile family so, pencil in hand, Martin sketched out the iguanas. Martin designed 2 interlocking iguanas which give the illusion of being 2 different pieces, but which use one iguana that is inverted to create a pair. To get a sense of proportion he then reduced the scale and inserted the design into a scaled drawing of the cabinet. The body and head of both iguanas project out from the cabinet door by 4” and the underside of each projects 1 ½” so that there is enough clearance for the hand to grab either the head or tail of each iguana to slide the pocket door open. The angle of the head, legs and tail were made so that the pair would interlock comfortably but leave sufficient space so that fingers would not be pinched.

Below are the original sketches for the first large reptile sculptures that are the central pieces in the Lizard collection. Given their realistic design Martin felt he needed to create a left and right facing lizard so that he could more naturally capture the movement of a pair of lizards. The pair was designed so that the head of the right lizard protrudes beyond the slate back-plate allowing the thumb to then be extended to depress the butterfly thumb piece and thereby release the door latch.

Blue Birds Make A Clean Start in 2018

We celebrated 2018 in Paso Robles with close friends and our dog Iris. The hikes, chilly air and the bird life all helped to revitalize our moods and energy and so like these Blue birds we enter 2018 with a refreshed perspective.

We have incorporated bird designs in both our animal cabinet pulls and in our jay bronze sculpture and will be adding a raven to our collections in the months ahead. While the blue birds shown here are vivid colorful creatures they do not make easy subjects for bronze castings as their markings and multiple colors are difficult to create even with hot patinas. The scale of these small birds with their thin legs is also challenging making it necessary to add an artistic mount to support the heavy body weight. 

Ravens  by comparison have a more uniform color range and stronger legs proportionate to their body size making them perfect as free standing sculptures. We live in the Hollywood Hills and have several families of ravens that we see on a daily basis and appreciate their flying skills, antics and obvious intelligence.

 Martin has just begun his initial design for this new piece and  has decided that the piece will be close to life size at 22” from beak to tail feathers and in a pre-flight position. He is currently hoping to find someone in the Los Angeles area who has a captive raven so that he can photograph the bird from other perspectives so if anyone has any suggestions please let me know.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

While we do not presently offer zombie door handles or other flesh eating creatures we do have a few lizards to celebrate Halloween with and there is a definitely an audience out there that demonize these reptile.

If you are  searching for air born winged demons then look no further as we have a left and right facing bat to add a note of horror or whimsy to your cabinetry.

Bats are left and right facing making them more ergonomic for the left handed amongst us. Their directional nature is also useful for the majority of kitchens where you have double doors or where you are looking to match the “handing” of your door. The challenges of door handing have been discussed in previous posts.

For those who associate toads with Halloween we can help you with our leaping tree frogs as cabinet pulls or with frog knobs for your interior or exterior doors.

In short we have a variety of Halloween offerings to choose from and hope the artistry of our designs as well as the medium of bronze will help your choice outlive the shortness of this macabre holiday. Enjoy.  

Moths and Butterflies- It is the Season for Insect Cabinet Knobs

We have this year enjoyed a refreshingly wet winter here in LA and as a result have an abundance of flowering trees and foliage so it should come as no surprise that we have a large insect population. While we may not enjoy the large mosquito population the moths and butterflies are a breathtaking delight. Attracted by white light, we usually glimpse hawk moths hanging on our patio wall but this year we are finding them in the house on closets, on shutters and in the bathroom.

Animal and Insect Cabinet Knobs and Pulls

We had a preview of what we could expect by insect life when the long legged ganglycrane flies started arriving. The sheer number of crane flies, which are often mistaken for gigantic mosquitoes, was so large that it has almost cured my phobia of this marginally attractive insect. However, when it comes to moths and butterflies their sheer beauty is undeniable and their shape and color have always been a source of inspiration for Martin. 

While bronze can be colored by applying ferrous nitrate to a heated area to make a yellow amber patina or by applying copper nitrate for blue tone these patinas cannot begin to replicate the complex patterns that moths display in nature. So when portraying moths and butterflies in bronze, Martin has focused on the elegant and dramatic shapes of their wings and bodies and the natural gripping points that occur where the wings join the thorax.

Happy Thanks-Giving

We have used some of our cabinet knobs to create a festive wreath to celebrate Thanksgiving, see if you can spot the pieces we used. We will be spending our Thanksgiving with friends and neighbors and celebrating the day pot luck style. To all our friends, neighbors and clients may you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.      

Anne and Martin Pierce

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO BAT LOVERS

As many of you know Martin loves reptiles and insects but he also loves mammals and this extends to bats which are found in his collection of animal cabinet pulls.

For some reason I do not think of bats as mammals and see them as flying rodents and indeed if you look at many bats they do appear to be rats with leathery wings.

Bat Cabinet Pulls

When Martin and I were in Belize several years ago we stayed at the luxurious Blancaneaux Lodge, a Coppola resort and took a guided excursion by canoe to Barton Creek Cave. The ancient Maya once used this cave as a burial site and the interior is filled with spectacular stalactites and stalagmites and a thriving bat colony.The ceiling of the cave was fairly low so with our head held flash lights we could see the fine details of the bat faces and their fury bodies as they hung from the cave ceiling in clusters. 

More recently, in Paso Robles, in the hot month of August with the doors open to cool the house a large bat with a 16" wing span flew into our bedroom. After much flapping the bat tired and so Martin was able to carefully hold the bat by its wings and emboldened by his action I stroked the incredible downy coat of its fur and touched the soft fine translucent leathery skin of its wings. Respecting the bats right to peace we turned all the house lights off and released him back to the night. For those bat lovers out there is a great YouTube page where you can see a bat rescue center in Australia with some adorable bat videos.