TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Making implements to gather food was humankind’s earliest act of creativity—a quest that inspires the work of blacksmith Conrad Hicks and food designer Caro Jesse
“We both love tools,” says Caro Jesse, a Cape Town-based designer who creates sensory experiences using food, art, scent and sound. She and her partner, blacksmith Conrad Hicks, share a lifelong interest in the everyday implements of human industry. “Artists’ tools, cooks’ tools, building tools—all tools are the same, really. It just depends on the scale.” For the couple, it goes deeper than an appreciation of the utilitarian beauty of tools; it’s the way they shed light on human development, going all the way back to the Stone Age.
“We’ve been making tools for two and a half million years,” explains Hicks. “Spoken languages only arose about 9,000 years ago, so tools and physical gestures were our means of expression.” It’s a subject he is uniquely qualified to talk about. Unlike other craftsmen, blacksmiths have to make their own tools. They are the original toolmakers: traditionally, blacksmiths made not only swords, armour, hinges and horseshoes but also the implements necessary to perform those tasks. The same is true today, particularly for Hicks, who keeps to traditional blacksmithing principles, forging everything by hand.
FROM THE FORGE
Hicks’ triple-volume forge, housed in an art deco cinema in the gritty suburb of Observatory in Cape Town, South Africa, is an informal museum dedicated to his collection of antique, salvaged and selfmade tools. Hundreds of metal tongs and other implements hang from rails mounted along the walls, a jumble of vintage farming equipment lies on the floor, and heavy-duty power hammers stand waiting to whir into action. Many of the industrial machines in his workshop are so old they can’t be operated, but they hold a historic value that is often overlooked on their way to the junk heap. In the cavernous space, he fires up his forge, stoking the coals until the flames crackle and dance upwards. “The process begins by taking a lump of copper or steel, and beating it. It’s kind of like clay in this regard—the cutting, pressing, heating and stretching—and the shapes that emerge from the metal eventually start to communicate what I want to say. But the actual process is very simple; it’s just cutting, hammering and stretching.”
It’s extremely labour-intensive but the physicality helps him find his flow, which is essential for the type of sculptural work he creates. After running a successful workshop producing gates, screens and architectural commissions for 15 years, Hicks has, over the past decade, focused more on making sculptures and one-off pieces of collectible furniture. He has earned several major commissions for Cape Town landmarks such as Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Tokara Winery in nearby Stellenbosch and luxury boutique hotel Ellerman House, as well as for private homes in South Africa, the US and Switzerland.
COMMUNING WITH NATURE
Since 2013, Hicks has exhibited with
Southern Guild, Africa’s only gallery dedicated to collectible design from the continent. The gallery has taken his pieces to international design fairs such as Design Miami/ Basel, Design Days Dubai and Collective in New York and held his first solo exhibition at its space in the Silo District at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town earlier this year. His new collection included a chaise whose beaten copper surface fans out like wings (appropriately titled Firebird Chaise); the Artefact Chair, combining a ribbed steel seat and copper backrest; and the 3m-long Serge Server, whose central steel spine acts as a brace to swirling folds of oxidised copper.
Expressive and highly textured, his pieces echo forms from nature—bones, birds’ wings, lily pads and leaves. This is another point where the couple’s creative visions converge. They are keen explorers of their natural environment, spending hours walking in the fynbos around the Western Cape, studying indigenous plants and collecting natural mementos like quartz crystals, lichen and fungi. “He’ll pick something up and give it to me because he knows I’ll like it,” says Jesse.
“By the time we head home, my pockets are filled with stuff.”
These artefacts all make their way back to her studio where they become ingredients, props for the food shoots she styles and directs, or inspiration for an artistic installation. Situated upstairs from her partner’s workshop, Jesse’s kitchen and photographic studio is a light-filled eyrie that sits in sharp contrast to the gothic drama of his blackened forge. A small hydroponic garden trickles water into a plastic tub and natural treasures are laid out like bounty on tables—furry baobab pods picked up in Botswana, mushrooms that have dried paper-thin, swathes of airplants and black volcanic glass.
SET THE TABLE
Jesse is a trained Cordon Bleu chef who cut her teeth at iconic Cape Town restaurants such as La Colombe. A later spell in the media as a food editor immersed her in the local dining scene. “I witnessed the evolution from white plate fine dining to a more creative experience that took all the senses into mind.”
She was hooked, carving out a career for herself as the go-to person for immersive events with a playful approach to food. She has made edible mosaics for the launch of a couture tile range, translated paintings by leading South African artists into food installations for an art gallery opening, and conjured the four seasons for a pop-up dinner using coloured light, fragrances such as burning wood, a six-course meal and sounds from nature mixed with music she made herself.
To mark the opening of his solo exhibition at Southern Guild gallery in Cape Town, the couple created a dinner that explored the relationship between tools and food in human evolution. The menu brought to life early man’s development from Stone Age hunter-gatherer to agricultural tribesman. Guests ate with knives hand-forged by Hicks to encourage a closer connection to their food. Tools are our means of interacting with the world—to make life easier, more sustaining and more pleasurable. And it all began with food.