Statement
I’ve been a professional social worker for 25+ years and I have been exploring the plasticity of metal since I was a kid. My art is strongly influenced by my experience as a therapist and my practice as a therapist has been enriched by the physical and mental experience of being a blacksmith.
Minds, like metal, are at one moment capable of the greatest rigidity and toughness. At other times, under the right conditions and in the optimal environment, minds become more open, pliable and receptive to movement. Steel, when heated to the right temperature, yields the most amazing properties, opening itself to changes in shape and size. In this state it lends itself to partner with the blacksmith and become something more, something greater than it was initially. Now, I find that my life as an artist blacksmith and my life as a professional psychotherapist are both more rich because of the other.
In the early 1990's Artist Blacksmith Ivan Bailey said to me "You reminded me of metal." and he encouraged me to try blacksmithing. I later spent a week working over a coal forge at the John C. Campbell Folk School and there I was bitten by the blacksmithing bug. I've continued my smithing studies in formal and informal learning settings. I hold a certificate in Artistic Blacksmithing from the Haliburton School of the Arts - Ontario, Canada
Dave MacDonald