GUY STERLING lifts a glowing iron bar out of the forge and places it onto a large anvil, holding one end he deftly strikes the red hot rivet with a hammer. In the dimly lit forge, sparks fly. “Do you want the Edison on?” he points, with the hammer, to a bare light-bulb hanging from the rafters above the anvil; then shifts his focus back to the work at hand. He's quiet as he moves back and forth between the forge and the anvil, heating, holding, hammering; working at the rivet until it’s just right. When it's done he looks up, hefts the hammer he’s using from one blackened hand to the other. “This is my favourite hammer,” he says with affection, “There’s a hammer for almost every use,” to illustrate the statement he points to a rack of hammers against the wall. They are not only tools for Guy, they are collectors items. The corrugated iron walls of his Midlands forge are very busy, crammed with every conceivable object; huge saw-blades hanging on hooks, bent iron and copper plates propped against the wall. “I’m a bit of a junk addict," he admits, “I’m always looking for interesting stuff. I find it all over the place, to someone else it may seem like junk, I know, but I’ll eventually find a good use for everything.” Guy’s curiosity, however, goes further than junk. He takes pleasure in finding these things and discovering the uses and the relationships to old, often forgotten, trades. For Guy these are not just trades or crafts, they are arts. As a working blacksmith he has an appreciation for the skill it takes to produce something out of raw material. As an example he shows me some traditional grass sweepers he has in his studio shop at Piggly Wiggly in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. They are well made, by local craftsmen, with fine detailed stitching. Guy’s astonished at the low price the craftsmen sell them for, considering the time and skill needed to make them. It's something Guy has an inordinate understanding of; it takes time to produce something unique by hand, time is valuable. Guy has a broad knowledge of the older ways of working. He prefers the slow process of doing things. His choice of blacksmithing came naturally to him. “Everything about working with steel fascinated me when I was a kid. The welding, the grinding, absolutely everything, and I’m still crazy about it today.” So you like your job then? “Love it,” he says, without a moments hesitation, adding, “I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.” Guy has been fascinated with blacksmithing and working with steel ever since he can remember. “At first in dad’s workshop,” he says, “I was probably about eight years old then.” According to Guy, blacksmithing is both functional and creative. “I know the rules, the thing is, I've never liked or wanted to conform, you know, to make everything square.” The adage: “One man's trash is another mans treasure,” applies to his everyday work. There is a lot of recycling, re-purposing and up-cycling in Guy's craft. He is captivated by the inventive and creative possibilities of the art of blacksmithing. He’s always looking for the form in things, the shape, the texture; imagining alternative uses for objects or materials: a piece of chain and some pick heads become a sculpture of a scorpion; used in a different way the same materials become a functional fire basket. Blacksmithing is not just about hammering at hot metal, there's a lot of deep thought that goes into working with steel the way Guy does, and at any time you might find Guy just standing at his anvil hammer in hand, thinking. It's possible he's thinking of rusty nails; awhile later, and following the blacksmiths age-old adage: 'heat, hold, hammer,' bang bang bang bang and a bunch of rusty old nails become a belt buckles or a necklaces. Guy's creativity doesn't end in the forge, he enjoys the heat of the kitchen just as much. He has a keen eye for photography too, applying the same creative instincts to his photography, form, shape texture. He enjoys photographing still life for his wife to paint. He points out the copper rivets he’s used to join the plates on a tractor style seat he’s just shaped into a bar-stool. Some of the rivets he made himself from recycling old tins. He shows me how he punched the holes through the seat with a hand punch, explaining the process and describing how he shaped the copper seat. He runs his hand over the curve of the seat, “Over time the seats will develop a nice patina. I like the slow process of this work, sometimes just the repetition of doing something; the punching or riveting, it’s hard work, it’s tactile, it’s quite reassuring.” What is also reassuring for Guy, however, is that there is a worldwide resurgence in the old trades and crafts from blacksmithing to artisan bread making. He's recently found that there's a call to learn blacksmithing and has developed a course for anyone who wants to get a taste of what it's like to work with steel in this way. See more photos of Guy in the gallery or contact him on details off the card below. | click photo for light-box |
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