Sir Ringo Starr’s Peace Hand.

Before settling in the US, Sir Ringo had a mold made of his hand in the peace gesture, and had a British sculptor named Guy Portelli expand it to a 9 foot tall realistic hand. Guy cast a copy in bronze. Later Sir Ringo designed a flattened cartoon or surreal version of the hand, with a bee and applied mosaics on the palm to symbolize peace and love to the bees and all things natural. The first hand has a simple oval base that is engraved with the words Peace and Love. The second one has a star shaped base, and between the five vertex of the star are the words peace and love, in a different language between each vertex.

Sir Ringo kept them as garden ornaments. When he moved permanently to Beverly Hills, he shipped over the original bronze, with a cargo bag full of parts from the original model. The pieces were mostly twisted out of shape, some rotten, broken and many missing. There were no molds.

First, I installed the bronze version on Sir Ringo’s property in Beverly Hills. Then he asked me to see what could be done with the contents of the two cargo bags. He wished to make new version of the hand and present it as a gift to the City of Beverly Hills in the name of Peace and Love.

I decided to take on this project because I felt honored, and because he proposed to cast 24 of them and see if they could be sold around the world.

I assembled the parts of the original model, involving much replacement and remodeling. I fashioned new parts such as the ring for the realism hand, and a bumble bee for the surreal hand. With my team we sculpted the two new masters, now full sized pieces, and made two professional production molds for duplication. This painstaking process took more than a year to accomplish with special help of Carlos Chavez of Kalonite Foundry.

The peace gesture was adopted from the WWII hand signal for Victory. It was called the V sign. When holding palm forward in the gesture it symbolized determination to push back, defeat the enemy and seize victory. This hand sign helped to unite the people of Britain and ultimately the allies. Later the hippies, who were the great libertines of 20th Century, adopted the V sign sign to mean peace, a total victory over all war. This became the hand sign of the generation that changed the world through peaceful demonstration and music.

Since medieval times the V sign meant Venus and all things Venereal, the two fingers forming the shape of the crotch was considered suggestively sexy. So it was the hand sign to use when you told someone to f@#!-off. This gesture has the back of the hand facing forwards .

I cast the first two hands in Stainless steel and I revealed them to the public at Sir Ringo Starrs 78th birthday party at capital records on 7/7/17. At the same time I helped Mr. Scott Ritchie (Sir Ringo’s assistant) submit the proposal to the City of Beverly Hills to place the realistic version of the hand near the lily pond on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Strangely the offer was declined as the Arts Commission of Beverly Hills did not think the piece met their criteria for art. It wasn’t until almost two years later that Scott Ritchie, with the help of Jill Collins managed to have the decision reversed by the new Mayor John Mirisch. The hand was finally accepted by the City, not as art but as a symbol of Peace and Love.

It is soon to be installed in the gardens of Beverly Hills for the world to see.

Building the master, Star Base with 5 languages
Building the master. Oval base for the realistic hand
The surreal hand. With The Yin and Yang sign on the back of the
hand
The two hands at the entrance to my garage.
At Capital Records
Happy birthday Ringo!
Shaping the Ring for Sir Ringo
The Peace ring
Sculpting the bee.
With the Bee. (painted by the great artist Signor. Ole Olofson)
With the mosaics installed. For the love of nature, bees and bugs of day and night.
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Some things for Ringo Starr.

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Last year I had the great honor to care for one of Ringo’s original sculptures, namely the Peace and love hand. It is eight feet tall and weighs 1800 pounds of bronze. We wish for peace and love in the world! This is now placed in Ringo’s garden and we have the master copy ready to duplicate on request.

Following that, we made him a very special coffee table to use in his main study room.

ringo starr coffee table

This is a massive slab of oak set upon two super heavy pieces of I beams. It looks remarkably simple, but I assure you, it is complicated to accommodate wood movement and other forces. We fumed the wood with ammonia which gives oak such a remarkable color, and the gorgeous texture created by chisel only with no sanding, is rubbed and burnished with beeswax. The table seems to have a life of its own.

When I was on the hunt for the magnificent board of oak, I saw a collection of walnut burls on the ground in the lumber yard. I sent a quick text photo to Ringo, and he told me to get two to do something with. I sculpted two of them to be extremely comfortable stools, chair height, and sculpted with the form of the tractor seat. This shape for a chair is known to be the most comfortable. They certainly are and Ringo and everyone who sits in them loves them. The incredible grain and figure of walnut burl shows beautifully in this free form sculpture, and the French polish created a remarkable extra level of luxury.IMG_1140ringo starr Burl stool (1)

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Early Days

I formed a company to preserve and pursue the decorative arts. I created a system to train apprentices up to the level of master crafters, and sought out accomplished masters who are the best in their field.

Somehow I always had a profound respect for all natural materials and I admired the dignity of the artisan, his manner of developing skill and pride in execution of the work.

I inherited the tools of my Great Grandfather George Daglass, who was one of the principle craftsmen in the building of London’s great late gothic train terminal at King Cross/St. Pancras.

 

There is a beauty in hand worked things of all kinds. This was instilled in me by the late Sir Clough Williams-Ellis who was still adding to his masterpiece of Portmeirion Village in Wales when he hired me as his assistant. He was 90,  I was 19.

Sir Clough was an eccentric, fantastic old man,  very enthusiastic about his ideas. He constantly exclaimed things like, “Vistas, cleverly arranged direct the viewers sensibilities all the way to the horizon” Once he pointed to the dry stacked stone walls around the fields of Wales he said” See how handsome stonework is, resting in the weight of its own gravity” When he was explaining Vistas, he pointed down the great tree lined avenue in his garden of Plas Brondanau. He spread  his arms in satisfaction and simply say “Look… how we frame the view of Cnicht”. This was one of the mountains in the Snowdonia range.

I looked up to this great master with enormous reverence. I think Sir Clough taught me how to see, and appreciate the whole composition of buildings and gardens.  Later when I inherited the farm in Tuscany, I had to ask for his blessing to leave him and go operate a farm in Italy, with great joy and understanding Sir Clough said “Italy! the history of architecture will be before your eyes”

It was Italy that a deep connection with artists through the ages grew in me, and where I began a lifelong study of architecture and the decorative arts. From the magnificent composition of all the classical buildings, and the incredible detailed work in marble, wood, metal, glass,  I knew I was looking at some of the great achievements of human endeavor, and I determined to honor the traditions of the crafts, and keep this alive in the world.

After many adventures and much study of different cultures and styles, years later I settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico,   and opened my business designing and making doors and furniture.  This grew very quickly into a major operation with projects all over the world.  The arts and crafts are alive and well.

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