reviews > Austin, TX

Rebekah Frank
Rebekah Frank

7/11/09 1:53 PM

Blacksmithing is a practice rife with mythical associations, of man turning the raw, hard stuff of the earth into flexible material for his own use, against all the forces of stone and steel, and whomever it was who brought them into being in the first place. Rebekah Frank, a young smith of admirable skill, takes this practice even further, insisting that steel and copper, bronze and brass, can be used to create forms suggestive of lush, organic ones, like sea surreys and raphides.
Making something out of the most unexpected of materials is clearly one of Frank’s modus operandi, and it has even led her beyond her talents for manipulating metals through heat and hammer. A pair of corsets does this in the most unexpected of ways: one pairs woven upholstery fabric with pieces of venetian blind, to create a kind of domestic armor both witty and bizarre, while another mixes bicycle tire rubber with steel and delicate interfacing for a mix of hard and soft flexibility.

—Lori Waxman