Fire as a tool of TRANSFORMATION

One of the earliest specialists to step out of the shadows of prehistory is the metalsmith, a man who, even from the beginning, held a curious place in the social order. Sometimes he was held in high regard, sometimes in low - and for obvious reasons. Though he worked hard, his person was dirty; his face was blackened and his clothes burned by the smoke and heat of the fire. On the other hand, the things he made were useful and beautiful, and he had, in addition, the apparently godlike ability to alter the very nature of matter. He could turn dull rock into gleaming metal and could, at will, make his material liquid or solid, rigid or flexible. In very ancient times such changes were regarded as expressions of forces, not infrequently spiritual, within the material itself.

–The Metalsmiths, Cyril Stanley Smith

Creative leaps in the fire arts have always been led by artistic impulses—seeking beauty predated the making of weapons and tools, and that’s where the air element can be inspiring. Fire is reliant on air. Without air feeding the fire there would be no combustion:  just fuel, just potential, uncatalyzed, unrealized.

I look into flames every day, whether it’s the glow of the woodstove in the morning, the intense light and heat of the forge fire, or the electric blue arc of a welder. I have an extreme relationship with fire—it is a teacher whose practical qualities can be learned with patience. 

Fire commands respect, and it also demands intimacy in order to use it as a tool. I have to get really close, accept the possibility of being burned, and become friends with the fire instead of living in fear of it.

It is the heat that moves the metal, and this heat is my primary tool. When the metal is hot it becomes malleable like clay, it yields to the hammer and can be sculpted into flowing forms that bear almost no resemblance to the supplier’s austere machined cross-sections.

I don’t want to be standing still waiting for my piece to heat up, and I don’t want to have too many irons in the fire because I’m bound to lose one. I have to drop into the flow and have just the right number in the fire, and then it’s possible to be graceful and productive. 

There is a cleansing that can happen through the act of applying heat:  sweating, thinking, working, dreaming, and thwacking. A cyclical process. Heat, beat, repeat. The work is making me.