First Words
Chairwoman’s First Words Shona Johnson The cold, the rain and the persistent wind will very soon give way to springtime. Lengthening daylight, warming sunshine, welcoming blue skies, and new growth appearing in the hedgerows, fields and gardens assisted by, hopefully, warm rain. You can’t escape the rain! Spring always lifts my spirits. The first sign of the snowdrops and then the crocuses and I get excited that spring is here, but it ’s generally a few more weeks after the first delicate bulbs appear that I notice a change in daylight hours. Here in Scotland, the excitement of leaving the forge to go home in the evening when it is still daylight, grips all of the team. It shows just how much we crave the sun’s light following winter. A few days’
time and it will have once again become the norm to be heading home with the light. Spring gives us all the chance for a fresh start, a new beginning to the year. This year, there are a lot of exciting activities on the blacksmithing calendar and opportunities for you to attend events in person or to contribute to the digital newsletter or the Artist Blacksmith magazine and enjoy seeing your words and images in print. From forge-Ins to hands on workshops, to a design-based seminar. To the opportunity to engage with international smiths through master classes, watching demonstrations or listening to lectures, it ’s all being planned and happening throughout this year. I am not going to list everything here, but would like to delegate you, to keep yourself up to date with what BABA has planned through the year. Please check your monthly newsletter, it comes by email, read the Artist Blacksmith magazine when it lands through your letterbox and if you do social media, engage with the BABA Members Group or the British Artist Blacksmiths Association page. The information on events as they are planned, are always well advertised with ticket sales on the website. Don’t miss out on an event you would have loved to attend. Please do engage, and decide to take part in a forge-in or attend an event. It really is the best way to meet new smiths and exchange thoughts and ideas and problems that inspire and effect all smiths. The new BABA website will be launched very soon. A lot of behind-the-scenes work is ongoing with this, but we are very close to having the site built, once testing and training is complete; we will then be ready to launch the site so please be patient as we get through the final stages. I always feel that a Spring is a creative season, the unfurling of leaves, seeds geminating reaching for the light and new life in the garden and the fields. For me, it is a great source of thought, shapes, and forms to translate at some point into designs for forged pieces of work. Enjoy the longer days, look, and see and sketch what is around you, then at some point you will have a good source of ideas for a design when you need it.
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Editor’s Words Henry Pomfret We have a real mix of articles this issue. There’s traditional and contemporary work, events, workshops, and forge-ins. Ever wondered about how the Worshipful Company awards are gained? Steve Miller explains. We have news about the launch of the new website and how it would be advisable to back-up your directory entry now (if you have one) or start working on some text and images for your entry in the new one so folks can see what you do and be able to find you on a map. While the directory on the current website is really awkward to use and didn’t function very well, uploading your information to the new one is said to be as easy as posting on Facebook.
The BABA AGM Event features in outline, giving you a sense of what is planned. Your Council are working out the details which will appear in the next issue. Talking of the Council, we have a very active team who are constantly looking for ways to give BABA members a range of events, catering for the interests of as many as possible. There is an account in this issue, of the well-received workshop on site-surveying and site fixing, held at Ratho Byres last November. If the report piques your interest, this could run again in another part of Britain. Get in touch with Kelly Burton, kellyburtonblacksmith@outlook.com to let her know you’re interested. There are also the Stainless and Bronze workshops with Pete Crownshaw and Andrew Findlay coming up which I’m sure will be well received. I’ve booked into the second one, so I hope to see some of you there. There are more in the works, including a proposal for one or several design-based seminars with a focus on contemporary design. Contact design@baba.org.uk if you might be interested in one of those. The mention of design got me thinking about when I joined BABA forty years ago. It was the time of the renaissance of blacksmithing with an explosion of new works, mainly contemporary designs, both large and small. Many of those involved with BABA in those early years were striving to take the traditional skills of the blacksmith in new directions, creating work that at the time was often quite astonishing, in that techniques and processes were used in ways not seen before. Not that I have any problem with traditional styles of work. For most of my career, I have done plenty, including restoration work. I can appreciate the skills required but it is not something for which I have a passion. However, it is to the constant repetition of traditional forms that I owe my skill at manipulating forged metals. This made it possible for me later, to create the forms that really interest me. Of course, there are still smiths within BABA who are creating wonderful contemporary works of quality; several are featured in this issue. Has that energy and passion to explore the unknown, so obviously evident in those earlier years dissipated? I am not sure what the difference is, but looking back, there appeared to be more of a movement amongst many, towards taking a more uncompromising approach to design and a refusal to produce facsimile 17th and 18th century designs, simply because that was what was expected of a blacksmith. These design seminars, along with other events being currently discussed within your Council, might awaken a desire amongst some of us to take a fresh look at what we create and to begin once more, to push the boundaries of forged metal design.
