My object here is to introduce people to my work and what is behind it, whether fellow craftsmen and artists, potential clients, or simply the interested public.

While the finished projects are important, the thinking and techniques involved are what animates anyone’s work, and it is this to which this site is most devoted.  The field of blacksmithing underwent something of a Renaissance in the late twentieth century in America that I was privileged to be part of.  Early in that craft awakening a tradition was established for open sharing of information and ideas.  The craft as a whole benefited greatly from this attitude, and it is in that spirit that I offer freely what I can.

Throughout history the blacksmith has filled a role that is hard to pigeonhole. Combining a mastery of material with an ingenuity that interacts with local community, that role varied considerably from region to region.  In the tradition of the rural American blacksmith I have not narrowly limited my interests or production.  While I am certainly devoted to making fine architectural metalwork, I have had a lifelong passion for music, musical physics, and so continue to make Aeolian harps as I have since my youth.  Although I love to make sculpture, in particular public sculpture, I also am exploring the role of craft metalwork in agriculture.  Forging tools used in food production, and making simple machines for processing seeds and grains is a special passion.  And like any self-reliant blacksmith, I continue to delight in the making of tools; hand tools and power tools alike.  Function and aesthetics are never far apart in my mind and work, and although not fashionable in some art circles, I am proud to be deeply immersed in process.  For process is the soil from which art emerges.  And diversity is essential to health, be it ecological or intellectual.

Blacksmithing is alive and well in the forges of many shops across the country.  Especially in a world increasingly dominated by global and impersonal production of machine made objects, the blacksmith literally holds the torch for a more local and sane relationship with the things we need and use.  Whether or not the global financial and corporate systems implode under the force of their own hubris and disregard for earth’s limits, I believe communities will continue in their return to regarding local economic self-reliance as important.  In this not only will community benefit, but the craftsmen and farmers who once were integral to small communities will feel welcome and needed once again.