Last semester I took Blacksmithing at ASU from Tedd McDonah.
(On a side note, its going to be hard for me to adjust to life outside of semesters and summer break...)
Honestly, I thought I would hate blacksmithing. I mean, really, it didn't look like much fun to me...lighting coke forges, getting disgustingly filthy (they call it blacksmithing for a reason!), standing over a 1500+ degree forge in 100 degree weather, pounding on huge steel bar that is red hot with really heavy hammers...didn't much sound like my kind of party. Well, it ended up being one of my favorite classes...ever. I LOVED blacksmithing. I loved lighting the old coke forges, using the hand crank blower, pounding red hot steel, learning to manipulate the metal...it was really fun. Really. I wish I had taken it sooner...there were so many things I wanted to make that I didn't end up having time for (or the biceps for). 
Anyway, here are some pictures of what I ended up doing in blacksmithing. I also made a ton of samples, some little steel hooks that I have hanging around my studio now, and my own pair of blacksmithing tongs...which was really hard, but I felt so hardcore when I finished!
(Click on any of the images to view larger)
The picture above is what I made for the candleholder assignment. Its about 14" round. The welding is BAD, but we didn't cover welding in the class...just blacksmithing. Im going to have to take a welding class one of these days.
This is what I made for the fork, knife and spoon project. Yeah...didn't feel like making a knife so I sort of ignored that part of the assignment. I loved making the spoon, but I should have started with thicker bar because I didnt have enough material to get a very big spoon bowl. They are about 9" long each...not super functional.
The pieces that took up the rest of my time in blacksmithing were these chains I made for my thesis show. There are 4 different chains, made from steel, sterling silver, and antique chandelier crystals. I included a couple of model shots (on my beautiful friend Julie Mikelson) to give you an idea of the scale.
Hopefully in the future I will get to do more blacksmithing! I'd really like to do in on a slightly smaller scale for jewelry applications.
All for now...thanks for reading!
Anyway, here are some pictures of what I ended up doing in blacksmithing. I also made a ton of samples, some little steel hooks that I have hanging around my studio now, and my own pair of blacksmithing tongs...which was really hard, but I felt so hardcore when I finished!(Click on any of the images to view larger)
The picture above is what I made for the candleholder assignment. Its about 14" round. The welding is BAD, but we didn't cover welding in the class...just blacksmithing. Im going to have to take a welding class one of these days.
This is what I made for the fork, knife and spoon project. Yeah...didn't feel like making a knife so I sort of ignored that part of the assignment. I loved making the spoon, but I should have started with thicker bar because I didnt have enough material to get a very big spoon bowl. They are about 9" long each...not super functional.
The pieces that took up the rest of my time in blacksmithing were these chains I made for my thesis show. There are 4 different chains, made from steel, sterling silver, and antique chandelier crystals. I included a couple of model shots (on my beautiful friend Julie Mikelson) to give you an idea of the scale.
Hopefully in the future I will get to do more blacksmithing! I'd really like to do in on a slightly smaller scale for jewelry applications.All for now...thanks for reading!
Last weekend I attended a blacksmithing demo given by 
