We were lucky to catch up with Thomas Latané and Catherine (Kitty) Latané N/A recently and have shared our conversation below.
Thomas Latané and Catherine (Kitty) Latané, appreciate you joining us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?
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Thomas Latané
When I was young, I did not dislike school, but my day always started when school let out. I gave a report in elementary school on using the woodworking tools my father had. A fellow student was critical of the fact that I did not look at my notes while presenting to the class. While in Junior high I worked on projects in my parents’ basement after school and in high school I built a small log cabin with some friends every day after school in some woods owned by the county. I set up a forge in my back yard while still in high school.
In ninth grade a parent of a classmate purchased an illustration I had done with colored tissue paper and India ink at a school art exhibit. In eleventh grade my homeroom teacher bought an iron bound wooden box from me, and a house I made as an art class architectural project sold in a local doll shop. These experiences planted in my mind the idea that I could earn money making things.
After high school graduation I went to work in my parents’ basement and back yard making wood and iron items for sale at art fairs and through consignment shops. This exposure eventually led to custom orders. I started out charging $3 an hour with a goal of $15 a day. At my forge I made items for a catalogue called Avalon Forge, which sold tools and equipment to revolutionary war reenactors. It was a good experience. The owner would show me what he wanted, suggest how I might make it, and tell me what he would pay. After making a large enough quantity of an item to realize I could not make my target wage, I would try something else. One product I continued to make was a type of pan called a “spider”, for cooking over a fire. I eventually stopped making those when the pans that were supplied to me (and were at first fairly thick) became so thin that I could not test my rivet joints without the pans flexing.
Kitty and I opened a shop together in an old bank building in Pepin, Wisconsin, in 1983. Then I was charging $7 an hour. People would ask if we could really make a living with our artwork. My answer has always been that you can make a living doing anything you like if you spend less money than you make. We lived in our shop building for fourteen years before we rented a house for a couple years then bought a house a block from the shop.
Kitty Latané
-My first tinwork, when I was ten, was a cookie cutter made from a used tin can, shaped with pliers. It was pretty rough, but served to make bluebird cookies for my bluebird meeting. I liked the idea that cookies could be made for specific occasions.
I was inspired later, after I married Tom and joined the metalworking world, by the wide range of cookie cutters made by historic tinsmiths and contemporary artists. The Cookie Cutter Collectors’ Club kept me busy for years.
I ultimately took tinworking classes at Eastfield Village, and learned to use a wider range of tinworking tools, and have been making many functional and decorative items. At Eastfield Village the emphasis is on Colonial American tinwork, but I have also enjoyed learning about Scandinavian, German and Mexican traditions.
Thomas Latané and Catherine (Kitty) Latané, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Kitty and I set up shop in an old bank building. In Kitty’s tin working area, in the front of the building, and my blacksmith shop, at the back, we repair antiques and produce our own original work based on design vocabularies from various historic traditions. Where we can we use historic techniques. I finish many of my pieces to have the appearance of age and to blend well with antiques. I am more impressed with the things blacksmiths of the past were able to accomplish with simple hand tools than I am excited about the potential of modern technology. Our work, and the work of some friends, is displayed in the center room of the building (which was at one time our living space). We built my wooden blacksmith shop on the rear of the brick building, inspired by mid nineteenth century structures.
In the blacksmith shop I forge my products by heating the metal to a plastic state in which it can be shaped by compressing between the hammer and anvil. It can be stamped with ornamental impressions from a variety of tools I have made, and it can be mashed into cavities in steel blocks to reproduce multiple elements of the same shape. A blacksmith never melts and pours steel or iron because, in the small fire in a blacksmith forge there would be enough oxygen (pumped through the fuel to create the high heat) to burn up the metal at melting temperature. After shaping the heated steel, I often further refine my work by filing and cold chasing. Chasing is the process of shaping the surface by pushing material around. It can sometimes look like bold engraving, but engraving involves removing metal and chasing does not. I make hardware for woodworkers, tools for craftsmen, lighting, and am especially fond of making locks. I find the amount of filing and fitting to balance the hot forging, as well as the mechanical challenges very satisfying.
I also enjoy working wood with hand tools, some antique and some that I made for myself. Collectors and dealers have employed me to repair antique carvings. I like combining wood and forged iron in my work.
In the front of the shop Kitty makes lighting, boxes, cookie cutters (tracings of children’s hands have been most popular), and cookware from tinplated steel. Tinware is made from sheets of tinplate that are cut to a pattern and formed to shape using mallets and stakes and simple hand operated tools. The pattern pieces are joined using mechanical techniques (folded seams or rivets) or solder. As with any craft, it’s interesting to study old pieces and identify the thought processes and many steps the craftsperson used. Sometimes I make replicas as exactly as I can, and sometimes I use design components or structural techniques in a different way.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
Though I sometimes complain about the stress of custom work, which can involve deadlines and price bidding as well as design input or control by the customer, this work has provided interesting challenges over the years of which I would never have conceived on my own. I have stayed away from [production work and enjoy the creative variety in which I have been engaged. When I have been bogged down by certain projects in the past and grew frustrated with my work, I have never been able to think of anything I would rather do and have carried on until another project lifted my spirits.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I have had much more work come to me as a result of sharing through my writing for blacksmith journals and public media than any advertising we have done. Before I was involved in the internet I wrote articles about my projects for the publications of the Artist-Blacksmith Association of North America and the Guild of Metalsmiths. Sometimes I just submitted a series of recent work photos with a caption about each.
The only social media with which I have been involved has been Facebook, on which I can see what other blacksmiths and woodworkers around the globe have been making. I regularly post photo albums of current projects with progress shots and detailed process descriptions below each picture.
The connection with other craftspeople has brought referrals and subcontract jobs from other artists.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.spaco.org/latane/TCLatane.htm
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tandclatane/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thomas.latane , https://www.facebook.com/kitty.latane
- Other: NOTE: I listed Instagram because we have an account but it is minimal.