Artists at Work: Blacksmith

After photographing the glass blower, I wanted to keep the momentum going, so I reached out to a group on FB - The Art and Artists of 614 - and asked if anyone knew a local blacksmith?  Within the hour, I was virtually introduced to Adlai Stein with Macabee Metals. 

When I photographed Adlai, we met in his studio at The Columbus Idea Foundry (CIF) - where he also teaches classes.  He gave me a tour of the CIF, which I will be sharing in a future blog. Today's blog shows how he would start the process of forging a knife.  

Anyone else get a kick out of "The Punisher" hanging on the back blue wall of tools?  It just seemed appropriate to include it into the first image next to the fire.

The anvil is one of the reasons I wanted to photograph a blacksmith.  We often think of it as a primitive tool, and in this digital world, it's great to see that artists are still using the basic tools to forge their arts. 

The photo on the left is showing how quickly the metal cools off.  The photo on the right is straight out of the fire again.  Adlai is starting to hammer down the edges to make a point for the tip of the knife. 

We closed all of the garage doors, but left one upper level door open to play with light.  The light entering this doorway was landing perfectly on Adlai as he worked at the middle anvil.  (Photographer's dream light).

He was constantly putting the metal back in the fire because metal cools so quickly.  I've skipped showing this step, but know that the knife was going back into the fire almost every 2-3 minutes.

I didn't get to stay all the way the whole process.  But I did stay long enough to see how he shaped the metal to create the curve of the blade and the handle.  I have a new appreciation for knives - as I hope you do as well.

I also purchased one of his giant feathers (it looked like a giant quill to me) - and it will be appearing in one of my stylized shoots coming up soon!!  

Please make sure to check out the Columbus Idea Foundry (CIF) for classes in Blacksmithing and other industrial arts.  This week, I'll be photographing Rachel - a welder with the CIF.  And remember to buy local!!