Between the death of Samuel Yellin and the beginning of the revival in
the early 70s, art blacksmithing languished in North America, kept
alive mostly by a few of the people who had worked with Yellin. It
was chiefly in Germany that the craft continued to flourish and to
enjoy wide appreciation. Although contemporary Kunstschmiede --
artist blacksmiths -- may attend Hochschule, apprenticeship has
remained the normal entry to the craft. Having finished his Lehrzeit,
the journeyman -- Wandergeselle -- regarded traveling from shop to
shop as an important, even necessary component of his training. By
working in, or at least briefly visiting, many shops the young smith
became acquainted with techniques and tooling, styles and design
approaches in much wider variety that would be available at the one
shop where he apprenticed.
A curious part of this tradition was this: The wandering smith had no
regular income and depended on the work, short or long term, that he
was offered at the shops he visited. If there was no paid work
available, he was still welcomed, fed and put up for a night or two.
In token payment for this hospitality, he was "hired" to make a nail
which was then driven into the stump that supported the anvil.
Although I haven't seen it myself, it's reported that there are old
shops in Germany, some of them very old, that have anvil stumps
solidly armor plated with many hundreds of plain and ornamental
nail-heads made by many generations of journeyman smiths.
(I've used the male pronoun above. The president of the Artist
Blacksmiths' Association of North America was for years a woman smith
and I believe that the present president of a similar organization in
Germany is a woman, but acceptance of women in the craft is, with a
few exceptions, a relatively recent innovation. Nailmaking, probably
the most tedious drudgery in the blacksmithing domain, was often done
by women in England a couple of hundred years ago, presumably because
the stronger of them were regarded as equal to repetitive drudgery if
not to more intellectually demanding tasks such as making horseshoes
and wagon tires, let alone ornamental ironwork.)
- Mike
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Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/
