A Formal Education

Today I woke up without the help of my alarm clock. It wasn't on purpose, I had set my alarm for 6:30 pm. It was still somewhat dark outside and there in Ned's dorm it dawned on me, I forgot to bring sandals for the shower. Hopefully I didn't contract any weird foot diseases, sadly, only time will tell.

I was originally supposed to take a four day class with Derek, however it had to be canceled due to under enrollment. Instead I opted to work 1 on 1 with Derek for two days. An experience that Robert Menard said he wished he had when he was starting out... Derek's blows with the hammer were precise and efficient in stark contrast to mine. With one heating of the stock (iron) he would forge a taper to a fine point. With more than four heatings and several glances of hammer on anvil I managed something like a taper. In my seven hours in the shop I managed to make two S-hooks, one wall hook, and three nails.

Tedious and humbling would be the words that I would use to describe working on nails. At least, in the beginning, it takes a lot of time and precision for such a small and simple object.

Writing about forging makes me want to return to the forge. Like so many other things only through time and practice will I ever be able to create the pieces that I see in books, the pieces that evoke the artist's message so clearly that the piece demands to be taken apart. It demands you study every twist and turn of the iron, every inflection where hammer hit metal. Those masterpieces are what I wish to create. These simple skills, tapering, drawing out, twisting, are what I need to master before I can create much of anything. What I made today were pieces to practice those fundamental techniques:



Today I broke for a two hour lunch while Derek worked with kids from the Waldorf school in Freeport. I talked with the kids' teacher, Carl. The way he described the Waldorf school, it was like something out of a dream: it was a school where few actual tests were taken, where there was an emphasis on the arts and where teachers approached their discipline with the final goal of educating the spirit and the mind of each child in order for better understanding of the self. It sounded like something I might have enjoyed.

Derek lent me two books, Mastering the Fundamentals of Blacksmithing by Mark Aspery and Forged Architectural Metalwork by Peter Parkinson. I hope to finish both tonight..