Vito Bila stand 2005 silver

Here is a landscape formed through fiery blast and rain of hammer blows. In Vito Bila's hands such fundamental tools of metalsmithing are exquisitely controlled, production measured, composition considered.

What was flat sheet metal is transformed, becoming vessel, now containing messages from other places. Hand formed and hand finished, the surfaces speak of many things they are not: of skin, bark, bone, fluid. The forms tell of stems and arteries, natural architectures.

These forms and their groupings are individuals in conversation or organisms in ecosystem. Each is distinct in detail and definition, but interdependent: coexisting, relying, competing. The play of tension and harmony in the hands of a gifted artist results in balance within and between elements. Sometimes the most achingly beautiful melodies derive from dissonance. With each surface, piece and composition Bila builds the complex silent eloquence of his body of work.

Here are seven paces, seven pauses, seven vistas. 

1.

difference nourishes.
a pool of water by trees
seems to stand apart
yet reminds of
the connected swirl of life beneath stillness.
a child through being raises parents.

2.

divergent cluster: common good?
individuals depend on one earth and elbow toward one light.
conflicting emotions are parcelled up in one skin.

3.

In a previous work I recall Bila raising measuring cups an exact 100ml. Why? Because he can!  Now chased detail is not of metric measure known, but of uncompleted anatomy education worksheets with numbered parts awaiting names. My attention is thus called to interior spaces where linearity does not apply, to where things are measured on another scale. And to where the nameless dwells.

4.

repose and introspection
seem located
in midafternoon
by a still clear pool
for reflection.
of course we are 
wiser than narcissus
of course we are.

5.

and we are.
drawn by
the regularity of:
hammer blows, 
heartbeat, 
in and outbreath.
our chest houses the rhythms 
of life and work and love.

6.

watershed moment.
high points
afford a view
as far as the eye can see
and the heart has known.
a vantage presages
descent and further journeying.

7.

Even in cool quiet territory there are visual cues to the conflicting passions beneath apparently smooth skin. A vessel is never mute. Even the air in spaces whispers reminders of the rush of life that has built it.

Bila has coaxed metal, through heat and impact, to carry secrets. Noting techniques of metalwork, subtleties of parts and sums, interior and exterior places, I am aware of nothing more than that I have been led by an assured guide into this landscape.