Working Iron. Happy Sunday!

Blacksmith working iron, Common Ground Fair, Unity ME

Blacksmith working iron, Common Ground Fair, Unity ME

When I see a wrought iron fence or baluster, still standing from the 18th and early 19th century, I don’t really think that each twist and curve, each leaf shape, had to be hand forged from iron in fire, with a hammer on an anvil…but, of course, it was so. I suppose today they are machine twisted and laser cut, laid out and sheet welded…done in a matter of moments, but traditional wrought iron was an art embedded in a craft, and each individual piece of the pattern took time and care to form. A four foot section of railing would have taken one craftsman blacksmith a full day to forge.

These shots are from the blacksmithing demonstration at the Common Ground Fair in Unity Maine. As I mentioned yesterday, The Common Ground Fair features demonstrations of a variety of folk and primitive arts and crafts. The Blacksmith shed is one of the most popular. In a small rough wood-shingled building, about 16×12, two blacksmiths, two anvils, and 2 furnaces work continuously all day long. One side of the building is open from head height on a 10 year old to just above my eye-level, and the crowd is 5 people deep on the 16 foot side all the time. The Blacksmiths keep up a running commentary on what they are doing as they work, and layer in a good dose of history and blacksmithing theory as they go. It is fascinating. I could have stood there all day…and I suspect there were some 10 year old boys who did.

This is another effort to fulfill my commitment to you and to myself to look for the beauty and inspiration…the spirit…in humans and the human condition as well as in nature. The Generous Eye has to see the spirit in our fellows or it is not generous at all. It is not hard to see the beauty and the creative spirit at work in a traditional craftsman or woman…in an artist or an artisan who shapes raw materials into something both beautiful and useful…beautiful in its usefulness…or useful in its beauty. Our trouble today is that we are, too often, separated from the process that makes the things we use, and the things we enjoy. We forget too easily the human labor…the beautiful work…the creative energy…the spirit of creation…the living breathing souls…that are behind every little thing we surround ourselves with…from cars to cameras to tea kettles and toilet paper. Some of us buy a few “hand made” things to remind ourselves, or go once a year to the Common Ground Fair, and some of us maintain a hobby that allows us to work with our own hands. We do try to keep the Eye Generous so that we can see the spirit in all we are and all we do.

Personally I am thankful for events like The Common Ground Fair, or the PunkinFiddle festival yesterday at Laudholm Farms, for the reminder of the dignity and beauty of human labor. No one participates more directly in the creative action of God than the human artist and artisan. It is good that we remember that! It is even better when that spirit informs our own labor. Happy Sunday.

Sony HX90V in Hand-held Twilight Mode.

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