Ever wondered what one of the highly sought after Memorial Auditorium seat would look like if it were stripped-down, varnished and powder-coated? Probably not. As a matter of fact, there are probably a lot of hockey fans out there that might look at this and call this original state a sin. “I felt guilty doing it,” Paul Proctor, Manager of EB Iron Art told me. “But at the same time you have to see the end result… the seats are beautiful.”
Indeed the seats were beautiful. Paul was asked to perform the audacious stunt for a charitable organization that intended to auction of the finished product. When I first took a look at the stripped-down version of what had been seats from the Blue Section I was stunned to see the beauty behind the brawn. “When I peeled the paint off I discovered that there was another coat of paint under the blue,” Paul told me. “From what I’m told, the blues were originally grays… and under the gray layer of paint I found this beautiful white ash. Who knew that there was such a nice wood under there?”
And just when you think that the guys at EB Iron Art might call it a day, another custom creation shows up at a nearby coffee shop:
As luck would have it, I happened to be at Sweet_ness 7 Café yesterday when Ed Hogle, owner of EB Iron Art, walked through the door carrying a hand wrought S7 branding iron. I had heard that the branding iron had been commissioned by café owner Prish Moran who was in need of a tool to permanently brand the unusual patio seating on the Lafayette side of the building. You see, she had taken a previously felled West Side tree and sliced it up in order to make her own unique seating arrangement. Sounds par for the Sweet_ness course. Then she commissioned EB Iron Art to fabricate a branding iron so that she could stamp the stumps, thus laying claim to the au natural additions. Soon customers will be able to enjoy a cup of coffee outdoors while seated on a custom branded tree stump thanks to the iron art shop.
A word of warning to the employees at S7 – look out, because Prish is really excited to use this new marketing tool and the necklaces worked out so well that she’s now on a rampage.
If you’re interested in learning more about EB Iron Art, call Paul at 716-876-7510.