Field of Heavens Sculptural Firebowl™

The Field of Heavens Story

When I prepared to make Sculptural Firebowl No. 1800, I decided to reach for the stars. Literally.

A 50 carat Campo del Cielo meteorite is the real star of the Field of Heavens Sculptural Firebowl™.

Front and center of the bowl, an actual iron-nickel meteorite from outer space is welded into a relief sculpture of a fiery falling star composed of two layers of cut steel. A shooting star within a shooting star!

Four more falling stars are cut into the bowl and backlit by the fire, so you can have your own meteor shower any evening you gather around the fire. When lit by fire (or by the sun when not in use), the firebowl will project images of the shooting stars on the ground. Annual meteor showers such as the Perseids and the Leonids burn up completely in the atmosphere and never reach the ground, but you can hold a meteor shower watching party around the fire with your own piece of the sky at the center. Whether you're an avid stargazer who knows the night sky like your own hand, or just like to make a wish when you see a falling star, this fire feature can bring a bit of magic and mystery from the heavens to your yard.

I have always wanted to work with meteoric iron, and this firebowl is the result of deciding to do something truly special when I created my 1800th Sculptural Firebowl. Iron from meteorites was the earliest source of usable iron people used to make steel tools and weapons before the discovery of smelting led to the iron age. Meteoric iron is still used by jewelers and fine blade smiths due to it's relative purity and the beautiful Widmanstätten patterns caused by long nickel-iron crystals revealed when the meteorite is cut.

Until space travel becomes commonplace, owning a meteorite is the only way you can hold in your hands something that is not from this world— a genuine piece of outer space that you can touch. It is also the oldest thing you will ever encounter, possibly older than our planet and the solar system itself!

Meteorites are stones that survive the heat and acceleration and force of plunging through Earth's atmosphere, coming to rest far from their origins in deep space. Iron meteorites originate from the planetary cores of planetesimals (small bodies in space such as asteroids and comets, left over from the formation of planets). They are made up from the same elements as the Earth's core and may be shattered fragments caused by deep space collisions of larger ancient asteroids. Most are believed to come from the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter but some may have traveled from far beyond our solar system, bringing mystery and meaning from the dawn of time and space.

The Iron-nickel meteorite in this firebowl is a metallic crystal that fell from outer space approximately 4,200–4,700 years ago. The age of the meteoric iron itself is about 4.6 billion years old, as old as our own solar system! Campo del Cielo translates to "Field of Heavens" and refers to a group of iron meteorites found 620 miles northwest of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Campo del Cielo Meteorite is one of the world's oldest documented meteorite finds, and is also the heaviest ever recovered on Earth (although in many fragments). It was first discovered in 1576 though aboriginal inhabitants of the area had know of it for ages. It is estimated that the pure iron asteroid weighed 800 tons before impact.

This firebowl design will be a limited edition, as it is no longer possible to acquire meteorites from Campo del Cielo. The Campo del Cielo specimens used in this firebowl design were legally obtained prior to the 2008 Argentine law prohibiting exportation of meteorites. I have access to a limited number of them that were collected by reputable dealers before the ban on export.