Boy howdy
This one I made at @centerformetalarts winter residency in January. It’s forged of wrought iron from a fence that was next to the Delaware River Canal down in Lambertville New Jersey. A man named Joe called me about it on winter solstice 2024 and I went down there and we hit the whole fence apart with a sledge hammer and I took 59 five foot pieces home. I Like wrought iron. It can be hard to find, and hard to work with, but it’s soft under the hammer and it holds a story in its grain like wood does.
Is a fence a noble life for a piece of wrought iron? Maybe it kept good things in and bad things out. I can’t read the language its life story is writ on. I try not to focus on that. In giving it back to the fire it is changed. A sword can be forged into a plowshare. This fence post I forged into a ritual focus.
The symbol I have chosen for my makers mark is the Karana Mudra. It is a gesture for warding off evil. I hope it works for you as well as I feel it works for me.
Many Many Many thanks to my dawg @nate_weiss_ for taking and editing these photos. I am grateful to have this community in my life. Friends who care and help ward off more evil than any hand gesture alone. But doing it together with pals is even more powerful.🤘
Full wrought iron incense burner set with ash shovel and Tampico fiber broom
Sometimes the air is too thick with rancor to clear. The sweet smoke is cloying instead of cleansing, adding a layer of falseness that fails to freshen the stale air and instead makes an unpleasant alloy.
Sometimes the only thing to do is to open the windows and doors and clear it all out.
Sometimes the conversation is too loud, more words would only heighten the discord.
Silence and reflection is needed.
But the darkness is always too deep, and we will always need more light.
Design, refine, combine. This incense stick smelled like the perfume aisle in the mall where they would try to give you samples as you walked by. I had to put it out after taking pictures. Good luck out there, good luck in your head.
Avert Evil 🤘
Didn’t you already post this one?
Yes I did but that was a while ago and I have used it since and improved it.
Design is a challenge. Making something that meets expectation is difficult. Making something that meets need is difficult. Making something that feels right is difficult. This isn’t quite there yet, but it’s closer. Thoughts are bubbling, feelings are coagulating, roots are inching deeper. The summer wanes already, but those hot and fiery flashes of frantic thought and the wilting heat of passion are cooling to manageable levels. I hope. Magic and energy, joy and wonder, suffering and pain. In the face of all of it there is a center. An eye of the storm. The place inside the blizzard. The left hand of darkness is Light. That one was Ursulas, but i think apt.
All that to say, I am still here. Trying to figure something out. I made a little box for you to put the dead matches in, and a sharp lil pair of tongs to hold the lil chunks of wood with so you don’t burn your damn fingers off. If you need anything else, I’d be happy to help. Just ask me, i’m easily distracted.
Here is something the small voice told me to make. Wrought iron from an old fence post from a hardware store next to the river. Thank you to @aspen_golann and @hunterlvelliott for the broom knowledge and @c.murphydoes for the Tampico.
Light a candle, cleanse the air, say a prayer to the big tree. If you need one of these I will make you one. I would say it costs about 100 dollars of pain. But i will donate 10 of those dollars to the World Central Kitchen to feed people who need to be fed. I will also accept vegetables, ceramics, positive spell craft components, and or other metals and stones, as well most reasonable offers. Thank you @muddyslug for the wonderful candles.
Only one week left before we say goodbye to our residents for the year, until then they’re having a blast making some killer work!
#blacksmith #forging #sculpture #workshop #cmawinterresidency
This ones for my boss.
The dawg, the Sorceress of Steel.
Appreciation for the best of us.
Anna Koplik. @arkoplik
3 years ago I was burnt out, beaten down and blind to the path forward.
It had been a long dark year and I didn’t know what to do or where to go next.
The only bright thing in my immediate future was a credit for a blacksmithing course at Peters Valley school that had rolled over from Covid cancellation the year before. I went from planning to take 1 course, to applying to assist in the shop for the season on a whim. And somehow Anna picked me.
That summer was a whirlwind, we cleaned and organized and wire wheeled, and welded for weeks. She taught me everything, how to swing the hammer, how to heat the metal, how to lead, how to treat people, how to think positively, and how even if the floor, the table and the ceiling aren’t level its still worth hanging the shelf level. She put this hammer in my hand, and taught me how to make my own.
I still use hers because like everything else she just does it better.
Now here I am leading the same shop.
Where every surface and tool bares the magic of her care and attention, and I feel the same way.
Infinitely better for her intervention, like years of rust and grime and mouse-shit have been scraped off my soul.
Everything good I have, in this new world of fire and iron, I owe to you.
You’re the fucking best Boss.
Thank you,
Thank you,
A MILLION TIMES THANK YOU
-My final project from assisting @arkoplik 8 week spring concentration @penlandschool . It is strange to be obsessed with something.
You can attempt to put your finger on it.
Try to narrow down the nature or nurturing that has brought you there. But I’m not convinced you can ever find the root.
Here is what i think today.
A sword gives agency, it is a tool to effect change in your environment. You can slay a dragon, strike fear into the cold heart of the dark lord, or slice through enchanted knots.
But it is an object of violence, a tool of destruction and a symbol of war. It wont warm your home on a cold night, you cant feed your family with it, and it will never be used to make or create.
But the feeling you get when you hold a sword is one one of potency.
When I worked in the city spending days in drear dungeons inhaling the dust of demolition. After a particularly dark day I would return home at night and hold the first sword I made. It gave me hope every-time and it still does to this day.
Here is a sword I made to give the holder a different feeling.
The path of violence is a circle starting where it ends.
I don’t know how to make peace, but i know what it feels to find some.
I hope you find some today somewhere.
The Eclipse Candle holder.
Cast spells under the dark light of your own totality event from the comfort of your own tower. This one was fun. Making something for the first time means a-lot of fucking around and finding out the wrong way to do things. There’s probably better ways to get the same things done with less headaches, but in the end it worked. I can’t really draw so this is my version of a sketch in steel. More ideas percolating, someday it’ll look different.
Reflections,
It has been a dark and difficult winter for many. Sometimes it feels foolish to wish for more from the season, but hope is never foolish.
In these months more than ever do we need those summer friendships. Inspired by the light of love we reflect in each-other. Sharing warmth and light is the way forward, and the coldest need it most.
Forged steel and brass. Candles hand made by
@muddyslug
Starting many new projects in a familiar place. So much has changed so much has stayed the same. Here’s one just for me. A new knife to walk around with. Cold water and sun through the falling leaves. Forging to stay warm in the dark. @petersvalley
I was hesitant to reflect on my experiences at the @johnccampbellfolkschool I felt that if I looked at it in the rearview as I moved on, I might never get back. But that is a foolish thought as even as I drove away I could feel it pulling me. I joked to some of my friends when I finished in July that I didn’t feel like I was leaving to go home, it felt like I was leaving my home to go elsewhere. I still feel that now back in New Jersey in the place I grew up. I hold so many dear memories in my heart from those 5 short months, more than I can share here. Sometimes words are clearer than pictures, I find they linger longer in the spirit.
Here are some from A poet named Raven Chiong I met at the folk school. Only an excerpt from the name sake of her book “Ode to the Still Small Voice”
“May I have the courage to listen
To the still, small voice
Resonating from a higher place.
May I have the audacity to follow my heart into the void
Leaping as I do
With faith,
Landing strong and trusting in a
New world,
I am now,
Unplanned, prepared
To be.
I do not fully understand.
I can only feel the tug,
Like Mother Moon on the tides,
Ineffable. The draw,
Like Sea turtle, who knows,
Like Salmon, when and where and to whom to
Return.
