ArtMetal

I thought it was time to introduce myself.

Gerald Boggs is the name and my studio is Wayfarer Forge. I'm located in the village of Afton, Virginia. It's a small place which time and the building of highways have passed by. Back in the day, it was the stagecoach and hotel stop for the east/west travel going over the Rockfish Pass. Later on after the railroad tunnel went in, it became the railhead for shipping produce out of the Rockfish Valley. Used to be a lot of apple and peach orchards in this area. It was quite the important little place. My home and shop is on a southern expose on the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains with a view of the mountains. I'm high enough up to see the valley floor, but a small hill top blocks that view :-( It's a nice place to live. Lots and lots of great dancing and folk music. The parkway and AT is a fifteen minute walk.

Anyway, on to who and what I am. First off, I'm an inspiring Classical Blacksmith. While I've trained and used machines in the past, the slice of the pie I wish to do, is the hand forging part. I started off working in a Forge/Fabrication shop. We forged most of our bits, however anything difficult was ordered out of King Architectural and then everything was welded together. It was a fair breeding ground, but not what I wished to be doing. After a few years there with a ongoing love/hate relationship, I finally quit and opened my own shop in the fall of 2004. At first, I still used the welder to make my joints, but as my skill progressed, I was been able to start using traditional joinery. While looking a Anvil ring, I read a article by Mark Aspery and was attracted to his clear no-nonsense approach to forging. After several e-mailings and phone conversations, at Marks recommendation, I decided to fly out to the CBA's Spring Conference. It was great! I took the tool making class that was held the first day. While there were six different tool making stations, I only did two of them. After the first two, I was starting to suffer from knowledge overload. The rest of the time there, exceeded my hopes. Mark and his friends warmly welcomed me into their fold. There were so many good demostartions, I almost got a headache trying to figure out who to watch. Just everything about the conference was good. Mark and another smith demonstrated the "six hour traditional gate". It really took them eight hours :-) With the conference under my belt, I had no doubts that I wanted to take classes with Mr. Aspery. After a bit of thought, this summer, I hosted him at my shop for a class on joinery. It was, without a doubt, the best blacksmithing learning experience I've had. It really pushed my envelope of skill and knowledge in the area of joinery. I'm working on hosting him again next year.

Well it might look as if I've gone off on a tangent, but I don't think so. It's all relevant to who and what I am in the world of metal smithing.
I've been working professedly for seven years and have just this year started to understand what I'm doing and what paths there are to travel. With that budding understanding, I realized there's more to smithing then just hitting the metal so I've enrolled in art classes. This fall has been drawing and fundamentals of design. I'm still deciding on what the spring classes will be. Right now it look as if fundamentals of design II and introduction to computer graphics will win out. I've started going to art shows and taken to reading articles on-line. I've been working on getting juried into the Artisans Center of Virginia.

As for working as a classical blacksmith. I'm not stuck in the past doing over and over some design from the 18th century. But rather I'm trying to work within the framework of classical blacksmithing, while embracing the design development of the last century. I confess, after reading the Bio of Edger Bryant, I almost changed my mind. And later on, I might, but only after I've a small degree of mastery of my craft.

Well, I think I'll stop here. I'll probably read this later and edit it.

Gerald Boggs