Peter Kirkiles’ fascination with shiny metals started as a young kid helping bus tables at his father’s restaurant in New Haven.
Collecting shiny pennies, quarters, nickels, and dimes left at the tables, he built up a large coin collection and was fascinated by their unique coatings.
As a child, he traveled with his family, including to Greece in the summers, where he found more coins with surfaces that piqued his interest in how he could work with these precious metals.
Kirkiles attended Boston Museum School, where his mother, who was also an artist, attended, and got a job in New Haven as an art fabricator, fabricating large-scale sculptures. While working there, Kirkiles was exposed to monumental metal work and was fortunate to work with Peter Versteeg, who specialized in large-scale contemporary sculpture.
Using scraps of leftover materials in the studio and alongside working with internationally renowned artists, Kirkiles created a portfolio to apply to graduate school to continue his investigations in metalworking and bronze casting. Accepted into the metalsmithing program at the Cranbrook Academy of Art which specializes in different art forms and residences, he worked with Gary Griffin, the Head of the Metalsmithing Department and known for utilitarian metalwork.
“With a deep history of metalwork and bronze casting, it just stuck for me, and the last 40 years I’ve been working in the metal business, creating architectural metal work, helping restore work for a sculpture conservator and working in my bronze casting facility in my home studio,” says Peter Kirkiles.
Kirkiles used his metalwork skills and excess bronze materials from professional projects to create his personal artwork. “It was a terrific way to go about it because I had the materials right in front of me,” explains Kirkiles.
Through a gallery owner, Diane Birdsall in Old Lyme, Connecticut, Kirkiles met the owner of the Delamar Collection, Charles Mallory. “The first-time meeting Charles was amazing because of his great interests that sparked ideas for sculptures that he was enthusiastic about having on display throughout the hotels,” says Kirkiles. “I loaned him sculptures in exchange for driving cars in his collection which was amazing.”
Birdsall and Mallory’s creative ideas for the hotels ignited sculpture ideas that were thematic to each hotel, whether coastal like Delamar Mystic or inspired by the art history ties to Delamar Westport. The pair would browse the works of Kirkiles’ studio and the pieces he was currently working on to see whether they would be available to be on display in the hotels.
“Mallory was looking for a sculpture for the Delamar Westport, and I’d been working on a headstock of an upright bass,” explains Kirkiles. “I thought it would fit in perfectly at the Delamar Westport because of the history of music in the area.”
The piece was inspired by Kirkiles’ time working at the sculpture conservation facility, where Francis Ingrao, who has spent his whole career as musician playing the upright bass, suggested that making a sculpture of the stand-up bass would make a great project. Kirkiles first took a mold of the headstock, cast it in bronze, and scaled the piece directly.
Each piece is carefully handcrafted and even includes tuning pegs and gears of the stand-up bass, all in an effort to challenge himself further and add more dimension to the piece.
“Most of my sculpture projects are from my own inspiration and don’t have an underlying purpose or meaning,” explains Kirkiles. “I sculpt the things I’m fascinated with and the things that I want to investigate, so when I come across a unique project, it just takes on a life of its own, and I’m motivated to make it to its fullest capacity.”
Kirkiles’ latest sculpture in the works for Delamar Mystic is a charm bracelet embodying the best of the coastal maritime town. The first charm bracelet sculpture was made for Delamar West Hartford. The silver charm bracelet is on display in the lobby above the fireplace. made of stainless steel and polished bronze, including charms of a heart locket and key, a purse, a high-heel shoe, and a teddy bear. “I thought this was an interesting motif because different locations and charm bracelets romanticize place and travel,” explains Kirkiles.
To craft the individual charms, Kirkiles uses the lost-wax technique by making the pieces in wax, forming a ceramic shell, and then pouring bronze into the ceramic shells. The Delamar Mystic charm bracelet sculpture will include seven nautical-inspired cast bronze relief sculptures on handfabricated bronze chains. “I do research on each object, so my detailing is accurate to what I love, and what people love about each piece,” explains Kirkiles. Objects will include a compass, a lighthouse, a boat and other objects to symbolize the city by the sea.
“The Delamar Collection prides itself on making permanent memories, so I want my sculptures to express those precious memories and the preciousness of the materials in the pieces,” says Kirkiles.
