Make it Yourself

Art is Art – Everything else is everything else (Ad Reinhardt)

I saw this quote the other day and thought of when we set up the Calnan Anhoj forge at Russborough House (Co. Wicklow, Ireland) back in 2009 and how we decided on a very straightforward way of distinguishing between art and craft. We did the Art… and invited you to do the Craft! Essentially what that meant was: if the object of your desire had a function, we proposed for you to make it yourself (with our help ofcourse)

The slow beauty of crafts

Most traditional crafts exist in this modern age with great difficulty – because the margin that ought to go towards profit is taken up by the ‘slow factor’ – making price points tricky. The slow factor – is a homemade word of mine describing the predicament involved in working with natural materials that demand patience, experience and lots of trial and error to coax into shape; especially if you have chosen to do so via a traditional process (such as anvil and hammer).

An ode to teaching

Any product must be well designed, well made, well finished, well named and then – the problem – well priced in order to sell… So it’s a low hanging fruit for many artists / crafts people to offer courses to balance things financially, as we get to share our joy of making, make a living using a studio we have already, and that handmade/ custom/ rustic/ soulful object that people own after the experience is even more awesome because YOU MADE IT YOURSELF!

Since I started teaching how to forge ‘objects with function’, people from all walks of life have just kept coming – men, women, young and old. Our 2010 to 2016 blacksmith-course series evolved on a demand / supply basis… Once I realised the interest, my creative brain went into overdrive and the ideas just kept coming. The following are images of some of the projects you could sign up for. I hosted a mixture of one-day and weekend courses, and some items (like the handles on the full tang blades and axes) required further work at home in the ‘spirit of slow’ (i.e. the more hours it takes to finish this piece the better because its a very enjoyable bubble to be in!) 🙂

What man needs – man makes

Starting with the basics. Need to chop some wood.

Need to carry the logs.

Need to light a fire.

Need a Fire Brazier.

Need to rake the fire.

Need something to eat.

Need to cook it

And serve it.

And eat it.

Im thirsty.

And a little superstitious…

Open the door please

I’ll clean my boots first

Can’t see

That’s better

Better again

And now for somewhere to hang up my hat….

And my scarf…

If you partook in any of the workshops over the years:

WE THANK YOU ♥️

You can still participate in a forging class at the Calnan & Anhoj Forge (narrowed down to the most popular one – see more here). But beware… you might get hooked!