New Orleans Icons: Iron Lace - Hardcover

by Kit Wohl (Author)

A heritage crafted of elegance and strength.

The wrought and cast ironwork of New Orleans is lauded worldwide for its intricacy and timelessness. Generations of artisans have labored to create the unyielding filigrees that guard windows, doors, and, gardens. Now, award-winning author Kit Wohl eloquently marries her passions for art, photography, and metalwork in this stunning tour of Crescent City craftsmanship. Graced with photographs of the city's most famed works, histories of each piece and its location transport readers on a journey of elegance and beauty. From the famous cornstalk fence to the storied splendor of the Pontalba Buildings, these vignettes illuminate New Orleans's rich artistic legacy.

Front Jacket

Since the very founding of the city, blacksmiths and iron workers established themselves as essential craftsmen of New Orleans' most romantic and iconic architectural details.

The grape vines, rose clusters, ivy and fleur-de-lis dance along balcony railings and climb our galleries. Whimsical faces of nature peer out from gateposts. Fences take the form of rows of cornstalks in a field.

Latticework, filigree, architectural detail and decorative ornamentation. A personal touch or conformist requirement. The prideful flourish of an owner's initials. An extravagant indulgence or vital security measure.

It goes by many names and interpretations, but what the work of the iron foundry men, blacksmiths, craftsmen and artisans has created for the city over three hundred years is, at its essence, a drapery of iron lace meticulously laid out over the fabric of life in this most unique and unusual city.

New Orleans Icons: Iron Lace is author Kit Wohl's passionate guided tour to the city's most historic, celebrated, ornate, imaginative and even mysterious iron works that adorn, beautify and protect so many of New Orleans' most treasured physical properties.

Iron lace is what stitches together the fragments of confounding beauty and incandescent creativity that comprise the very essence of this city. It's what we think about when we think about New Orleans.

New Orleans is one of those rare and exquisite locations that exists in both the physical world and in the imagination. As much as it is a place on a map, New Orleans is also a fanciful state of mind. Anyone who has been here can tell you that.

Kit Wohl is an award-winning writer, photographer and artist. The metal arts led her to combine these disciplines in New Orleans Icons: Iron Lace, her twelfth book and the first of her New Orleans Icons Series.

"Metalwork doesn't necessarily require strength," she says. "It requires heat and guile, much like writing and photography." She apprenticed with blacksmiths and welders, learning to design and fabricate railings, chandeliers and sculpture, the largest a 7,200 pound cast aluminum ceiling sculpture.

Her artwork is in collections from New York to the Bahamas and Colombia. She and Billy, her husband, live in New Orleans.

Other Pelican Titles By Kit Wohl:
Arnaud's Restaurant Cookbook: New Orleans Legendary Creole Cuisine - The P&J Oyster Cookbook - New Orleans Classic Appetizers - New Orleans Classic Brunches - New Orleans Classic Celebrations - New Orleans Classic Cocktails - New Orleans Classic Creole Recipes - New Orleans Classic Desserts - New Orleans Classic Gumbos and Soups - New Orleans Classic Seafood

Author Biography

Kit Wohl is a cookbook author, photographer, graphic designer, and artist. She has worked with chefs, restaurants, and hotels across the country as the CEO of Wohl & Company, and she drew from her passion for the culinary arts to produce Arnaud's Restaurant Cookbook. After she completed that cookbook in 2005, Wohl produced New Orleans Classic Desserts for Pelican. The series has grown, and each of Wohl's volumes covers a different aspect of New Orleans's traditional cuisine. New Orleans Classic Gumbos and Soups was chosen by Gourmet Magazine as their February 2009 Cookbook Club selection. For each of her cookbooks, Wohl chooses recipes from the repertoires of a wide range of restaurant kitchens and professional chefs. All recipes are tested and adapted to home-kitchen standards, and each is illustrated with one of her photographs. Cooking is an art and a form of creative expression, she says. Food is distinctive in form, color, texture, and flavor. The selection, preparation, and presentation of a meal are as creative as any art project. Best of all, it nurtures both the body and the spirit. Her energy and artistic talent have resulted in numerous awards for design and production in various fields, including a Clio Award, the advertising industry's equivalent of the Emmy. She was a longtime board member for the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and has been active in many of the city's civic, educational, and charitable organizations. Wohl and her husband, Billy, live in New Orleans with a trio of Abyssinian cats.