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To Preserve & Share:
The art and way of blacksmithing is the the hardest art form to master. The range of work, with related tooling, spans from the most delicate (Repousse') to the most massive (Architectural forgings) art work made by anyone.
While the flame of artistic blacksmithing knowledge had dimmed by the middle of the last century, it was rekindled by a new generation of inquisitive artist-blacksmiths who sought out and worked with the few remaining Masters.
The vast pallet of process, motifs and tooling which was available to apprentices studying under Masters of the past has survived as a body of knowledge in fragments widely scattered at best. To date there has been little comprehensive effort to accumulate, preserve and share the myriad variants, tools and details of artistic blacksmithing how-to.
The mission of Artist-Blacksmith.org is to bring the entire body of knowledge of the art of the blacksmith together is one resource, the Artist-Blacksmith Project. This is a multi-year project with lofty goals, a serious attitude and a good start.
The resources of the Artist-Blacksmith Project include graphics tools and examples from Master Blacksmiths Samuel Yellin, Francis Whitaker and Donald Streeter. There is also a large graphic, tooling and example collection of Early American and period European art metal. The focus of these collections is process. They include many examples of work in mid-stage, clearly depicting sequence and pattern. The results from this on-going research are published in The Artist-Blacksmith Quarterly. Additional information and restored graphics is published on Artist-Blacksmith.org.
The newest addition to the Artist-Blacksmith Project is the National Online Metals Museum, opening in 2005, made possible through the Historic Ironwork Fund. The Historic Ironwork Fund was founded in 1998 with an unsolicited grant from ABANA (Artist-Blacksmith Association of North America) and has sponsored research and education in the art of the blacksmith.
The motivation behind the Artist-Blacksmith Project is the reality of how fragile knowledge is coupled with to a truth which Chaucer observed in the mid-1300's; "Lyfe so short and the craft so long to learn".
Your support is both needed and greatly appreciated. |
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