Edgar Haris Bio I was born on August 8, 1944 during an air raid in Budapest,
Hungary. The war went on for nearly a year after my traumatic birth,
ending with “liberation “ by the Russians Life was extremely difficult
and my parents having lost everything they owned, in a bombing took
us to Italy for s three years while the country was trying to recover.
The Communists gained power around the time when we returned and even
though I had a pretty normal and relatively happy childhood, still,
an all pervasive aura of political and religious repression hung endlessly
in the air. I was a reluctant Catholic, an unwilling Communist, the
product of a middle class family ; and therefore a threat to the regime,
and lastly, a dreamer. Life was meager but sufficient with no frills.
We were behind the iron curtain, freedom was on the other side, to
the west... ...Read More
Briron Raley Bio
My life has found balance between the right and left, between black
and white, between the analytical logic side and artistic creative
side of life. In the California Blacksmithing Association, which we
all belong to; they think it’s something funny, me being both an Accountant
and Blacksmith at the same time... ...Read More
Dyno Man Bio coming soon....
Edgar Haris continued...
In October of 1956, the Hungarians rose up in a revolt against their Russian
masters in a desperate attempt to regain their country and freedom.
Although for a heady moment it appeared as if their attempt was successful,
the revolution was brutally crushed, leaving behind incredible carnage
and destruction along with even worse repression. Fortunately for many,
the borders to the West were temporarily down and we were able to escape
to Austria and freedom. And so, at age 12, I began a new life, quite
the opposite of the one I left behind. We were refugees and came to
the United States to become Americans. Coming from one culture to another
is a whole other subject in its’ self….. Nowadays I like to take a
universal approach and settle for being a citizen, or better yet, a
guest of the planet.
From an early age, I was interested in tools and in the potential they
held for making things. By the time I was nine or ten, I had a small
collection and was making things out of wood and metal. My head was
filled with ideas and dreams of creations. To carve something out of
wood or to make a ring out of a fifty cent piece with a spoon , was
a patient and extremely satisfying project. Such endeavors continued
all through my high school years, all the while continually dreaming
of a well equipped workshop to do things in. High school ended with
a giant sigh of relief, followed by a short and extremely frustrating
experience with the United States Marine Corps. It was 1964 and the
war in Vietnam was raging. College didn’t work very well, although
I nearly began my studies to become a dental technician, which would
have afforded me an opportunity to use my hands.
Also in 1964, purely by a fluke, I purchased a small set of basic jewelry
tools from an ad in a laundromat. It was enough to start with and there
was much to learn. It was an almost subconscious act. I didn’t know
that I wanted to do jewelry although I knew that I wanted to make things
and be creative. Jewelry just happened to be the first thing to present
itself. It was love at first sight, the bottom line always being, “
how would I do that”, or “what if I did this” etc. I was hooked. I
burned with a fever to make metal yield to my wishes, to my skills,
to make beautiful things and of course to sell them so I could make
a living. I quit my part-time job with U.P.S., feeling fully confident
that I could support myself with my newfound avocation. It was 1966
and I was living in the Haight Ashbury, like many other college students.
I spent two years there having a shop on the street, being in the middle
of that wonderful crazy, onetime ever event. Of the 22 years as a jeweler
I figure about 15 of were good years as far as the work went.. But the scale and sedentary nature of the
occupation was starting to get to me and so after a while I looked
for other things to do. I did some carpentry and construction during
my transition period from small metalwork to larger but it didn’t have
the intrigue for me that metal did and so I slowly began to build up
a shop that in some ways is just like a jewelry shop, except that it
is scaled up considerably. I am not the only jeweler who has ever traveled
this path, there are many metalsmiths/ sculptors out there whose roots
started out in small metal work.
I now have a huge wonderful shop/studio or as a friend of mine calls
it an eclectic metalshop. He is also the one who osays that I should
just call it a museum and charge admission. Some days it doesn’t seem
like such a a bad idea. Haris And Co. separate sheet. My aspiration
is to be a full time sculptor, designer , metalsmith in descending
order. I would like to see where my creative ideas could take me if
I was to be left to my own devices.
Briron Raley continued...
As a child I grew up in a house where woodworking was prevalent, there
was always a thin layer of sawdust on the garage floor. My father
was an engineer by weekday but an artist in his heart. He had the
creative artistic side in him, whether it was drawing or working with
wood, it was always perfect. There was nothing he couldn’t fix; there
was never a seam showing, not a drop of glue oozing out of a crack,
nor an ugly screw head on the finished product. When he took to pencil
and paper his drawings, were picture perfect. My father was a perfectionist
and worked with mediums that commanded perfection, he was Socratic
in his approach, his life and art. I found frustrations with perfection
or my lack there of, but like my father I had an artistic creative
side that needed to breath.
Socrates might have lived a good life, but Aristotle said it best,
he should have ran to fight another day. For years, I approached things
Socratically like my father. In college, the definition and terminology
of my frustration became clear. My failures to achieve perfection
where not in the finished product, but in my approach. When I thought
out my frustrations, my approach to art and the mediums I worked in
changed. During the week, I’m an Accountant; all other times I’m a
Blacksmith.
The creation element in the art is my Aristotelian approach to thepiece.
Most of the time I never create from a drawing, everything just flows
together with welder and hammers at hand. If a drawing is required
there will be some resemblance between the finished piece and the
drawing, but the life of the piece, its breath, its beauty, will be
all the differences between the drawing and the piece of art. I like
to believe that my art is living and I get inspired when it takes
on its own form different from the drawings.
