Kard - Persian-inspired knife

For this post I will open with pictures of my work, and leave the inspiration and process for later.

I attempted in this blade to capture what the essence of the characteristically Persian kard (کارد; Farsi for "knife") is to me: a deviously slim blade presence with graceful lines and a refined handle that makes you itch to grasp it.  I think I was more successful in the former part than the latter, but I am utterly infatuated with this blade style and fully intend to develop my own knowledge and interpretation of it further in geometry, history, and materials.

I've always been very attracted to blades that I perceive to be the "everyday knife", but not in the way that a buck knife is.  Rather, I loved the idea of the fashion knife, the heirloom, the functional knife that's part of the costume.  What's wonderful about the idea to me is that it is still an everyday knife, but it's not a nobody.  The idea may be different, but in my paper about the sword as a subarchetypal character in Germanic myth, I liken some named swords to heroes.  Similarly, the 'heirloom knife' takes on a character, passing as it does from owner to owner, from land to land, from ship to shore, on the bodies at the belts of people who are doing things to change and connect the world.

The kard in particular embodies this romantic notion for me because of the Silk Road.  Persia, for many, many centuries under numerous names, rulers, religions, divisions, cultures, and empires, has stood at the geographical heart of Eurasia and seen passions and wars flow between the ends of the earth.  The Silk Road was the great artery of this heart, connecting across leagues, linking through people, carrying the fractal nature of action from one end of the world to the other with infinite consequences unknown to their perpetrators.

Ubiquitous among Persian archaeology is a knife that comes in many sizes, shapes, provenances, and qualities: the kard.  Most examples are exquisitely beautiful and luxurious, but show signs of use, perfectly exhibiting the dilemma of the handmade sword: simultaneous function and beauty; more abstractly, caring creation and brutal purpose. 

The blade on the left is my loose interpretation of the kard, with a very distinctive blade and handle profile. Mine is a more stripped-down version constructed of materials of my choice, rather than traditional ones. The blade is ~325 layers of folded 1095 and 15n20. The pattern produced by hand-hammering this laminated steel into the three-dimensional shape of a knife pushes the layers back and forth across their lateral planes and produces a wavy, swirly, eddying random pattern when the blade is ground flat. The visual effect, revealed after polishing by etching it in a corrosive, is a vaguely recognizable imitation of traditional Persian wootz crucible steel (pulâd, پولاد, in Farsi), which according to some may account for the highly confusing misnomer "Damascus steel". The blade is 8.25" in length and the overall length is 13.75", with a handle proportionally longer than most extant originals, and perhaps also narrower where it widens to meet the base of the blade.  The placement of the pins is less common but not unseen; some kard had tang constructions that were obscured by the handle and others were laminated between scales like mine. 

I have chosen some examples of originals to highlight the unbelievable beauty in form and decoration.  To the right is a 19th century Persian kard constructed similarly to mine, but made of wootz crucible steel and heavily carved, as well as inlaid and overlaid with gold wire, resplendent in graceful floral curves for which Persian craftspeople had an obvious eye; the form of their works and their written language itself attest to that.  It was very common for the koftgari wire overlay to contain verses from the Koran in Farsi, among other decorative calligraphy. 

The next original example is also a sublime piece of work.  Similarly constructed of pulâd, gold, and ivory, it would be an aesthetic triumph already even if it didn't contain some of the most incredible Middle Eastern steel carving I know of.  It's a technical masterpiece, but I am always amazed by how aesthetically partial I actually am to Persian art and craft regardless of technical complication.  I really like it.

I have to pay credit where it is due, of course.  Though I have admired the kard for many years, I will proudly and unashamedly say that what inspired me to make this knife was the very similar (but generally superior in all aspects and overall execution to mine) kard by none other than Kevin Klein, apprentice to JD Smith.  To the right is the only known photograph of it.  During my class with Mastersmith Smith, Kevin was his right hand man and taught me equally as much.  I was captivated by the grace and obvious lethality of his piece, and how it sat in my hand like it was alive.  His blade pattern was deliberately smokier, his finish fine and precise, and his signature filework exquisite and honestly unfathomable.  Needless to say, I wanted to make my own.

I can only say so much on the subject of crucible steel that is generally referred to as "wootz", and if anyone's interested I can personally refer them to Mr. Jeff Pringle of Oakland, California, who has experimented extensively with the smelting, forging, patterning, and finishing of wootz steel.  I have a negligible amount of knowledge on the subject despite his best efforts to educate me, and I'm afraid it will be some years before I can carry a conversation on the subject.  But I think it has an unparalleled ethereal beauty.  The above example is striking in subtlety and contrast both.  Having personally experienced the incredibly difficult workability of wootz, and with my struggles with carving and inlay, I have some serious respect for whoever inlaid this steel with that gold and beautiful calligraphy.   Kind of like I do for Jeff Pringle on his creative piece. 

So, back to my piece!  My blade lies here, during its stoning and preliminary sharpening, on the back porch of my wonderful, beautiful Boston apartment that I loved dearly.  To the right are the lower bolsters I forged and ground by hand from ~200 year old wrought iron from a scrapped New Hampshire graveyard fence.  The handle scales are moose antler I purchased in Worcester, MA from a quirky and fascinating shop called Bones and Flowers, run by a wonderful woman called Tannin who wants to talk about leather and bone and horn and antler until the cows come home to be turned into craft material.  Seriously, if you stop in to see her, and talk to her a while, you're going to talk for a long time and then get some good deals on the things you've been eying while talking to her.  The people you meet on the journey of craft, as in anything you pursue to unusual places, are artful to say the least. 

I attached the bolsters mechanically with copper rivets; that is, without any adhesive.  The scales were epoxied and then riveted as well.  I have to say, it was totally a pain in the ass to try to rivet at that angle.  At the butt-end of the piece (see bottom photo), I embellished the tang with totally personal European-influenced filework, sandwiched between the protruding "ears" of the scales.  I felt the "ear" feature was appropriate given its appearance on some kard and pronounced ubiquity in the Turkish yataghan.  The filework was topically inappropriate but a good learning experience and fun artistic license.  I was very pleased with the color and texture composition of the piece, and felt that I had captured in a small way the refined aesthetic of the originals that inspired me.  However, my treatment of the materials and the way I decorated them leaves a decidedly European taste in my mouth.  In the end, that's what I am a product of, and I think I truly don't have the capacity to make anything else right now.  That said, this piece is a true representation of my aesthetic, aspirations (failed and achieved), influences, and progress so far. 


Stay tuned for the making of the sheath!

Making at MassArt

In March, I wrote a little bit about my bladesmithing class at MassArt with JD Smith.  I wanted to write a little bit more about what I actually did in the class, what I learned from JD, and how my world of making has evolved. 


JD is a deliberate and clear teacher, whose strength as an educator perpetuating the craft lies in the universal respect he holds for his students and the standards he holds them to.  He treats his students like the next generation of craftspeople.  He speaks intelligently and coherently to them, expecting them to understand and to ask questions when they don't; to engage directly and honestly.  In this way, he is able to ask his students to push themselves, to follow their intuitions but also to respect experience and perspective.  The result is a knowledgeable and talented student base, with a great array of individuality in their work.  Anyone who has taken bladesmithing at MassArt is well-informed and interested.  JD awakes both artistic passion and the seriousness of craft in his students, and is an invaluable asset to the growth and life of bladesmithing.  As for his work, it's skilled beyond my ability to judge, and more something I stand in awe of.  I might  also add that he's a captivating storyteller and evident badass.  If you find yourself in Boston, meet him.  If you live there, take his class.

 Now to the technical stuff!  The materials we used in class were 1095, a simple low-alloy high-carbon steel, and 15n20, a steel that behaves very similarly in heat treatment and welds to 1095 very well, but contains a certain amount of nickel for contrast with the 1095.  JD truly taught me how to draw, cut, and fold billets efficiently.  We started out with eleven layers of laminated steel, and I decided that for my pattern, I wanted to fold it to about 325 layers and hand-hammer for random pattern.  On the left is a billet cut for folding at welding heat.

The billet was humongous, and I ended up cutting it in half.  The first half was used to forge a knife blank that I ruined irreversibly while practicing a difficult but later rewarding grinding technique JD showed me.   The second half was forged into the blank below, which was the first stage of creating a knife that is influenced, very much in form and function if not materials, by the native Persian kard (Farsi for "knife").

I'll go into more details about the artistic/aesthetic and cultural/historical details of the kard later, but right now I'm going to focus more on how JD's class has altered my style.  His forging is fast and efficient: he taught me that unless you have a specific pattern, there's no reason not to hammer the hell out of your billet on the fullering dies just to get the damn thing longer, because you have to do that quickly.  The flat dies are for squaring things up later, but they'll make everything alright, so you might as well get the quick and dirty stuff done.  Draw that billet out, square it, cut it, fold it, weld it, draw it out again.  He works hard to facilitate the rhythm of production, an essential part of making things.

The truly revolutionary part of the class for me was JD's well-explained and well-modeled grinding technique that gave me real insight on how you get an even grind.  I'll say that Owen Bush taught me how to grind a sword, but JD Smith taught me how to grind a knife.  Standing on one side of the belt, feet firmly planted, body relaxed, hands supporting but not truly gripping the knife, and constant, steady pressure (not too much!) against the belt.  Starting in the same place every time and slowly letting off as you get closer to the tip, which has less mass. 

One aspect of making things that I have struggled with (as a natural perfectionist) is failure and compromise with my work.  Basically, things rarely turn out the way you envisioned them when you're starting out, and it can be pretty heartbreaking.  I'm not saying veterans are immune to this either.  I had learned to do something about this, which was accepting flaws as an attribute of handmade objects, and to compromise with the object I was making.  

JD had something to say about that:

"Stop accepting flaws." 

That gave me a turn.  But I thought about it.  A lot.  And you know what?  Steel doesn't have a brain.  It's not going to outsmart you.  It's going to do whatever you want it to if you give yourself the time to think about it and the space to execute it.  It's not you against the material.  You don't have to compromise with it, you have to learn to speak its language and then you can say whatever you want. If you learn Romanian, you can write poetry in it.  How well is up to you.

The above picture does a poor job of illustrating it, but I was very pleased with the evenness and beauty of the grind (read  more of my obnoxiously spiritual musings on grinding).  The next step was clamping the blade up and hand-polishing with a grit-variety of waterstones from Falcon Tools, which JD and his incredible apprentice Kevin Klein converted me to.  I'm sick of sandpaper anyhow.  Stones keep things much flatter and do things more quickly, in my opinion.  There was much camaraderie among the students in the class at this point, as we all sat around a table with our blades clamped to it, stoning and talking away. 

But soon enough our blades were hardened, sharpened, and etched, and it was time to begin working on handle materials.  I learned some excellent techniques for flattening my surfaces and making everything line up, but I kind of love the freedom of making somewhat random shapes like the handle bolsters, much as I loved making the crossguard of my sword: they're three-dimensional affairs that you can really alter at will and aren't as automatic as grinding a blade.  It's very freeing, feeling the weight of it and constantly eying it up and gauging how to get it where you want with a little grinding here and there.

The picture to the right captures an interesting phenomenon that occurred during the heat-treatment of the kard blade: a hardness line that shows the molecular softness of the spine of the blade at the base by the tang, and the hardness of the rest of the blade running diagonally with it and in the rest of the blade.

With all the parts lined up before final finish and assembly, I had again made something that was enough of an object now to give me a start.  This thing is becoming real.  I drew it, I messed around with a bunch of metal, and then now there's this real thing that was just thoughts and two-dimensional drawings.  It was abstract made concrete.  That's magic, if anything is.  I don't think it will ever stop amazing me. 

Inspiring Projects - SCOTT ROUSH // ZEB DEMING Merovignian Langsax

One thing I'd intended to do with this blog that I haven't yet begun was to talk about exciting and inspiring projects and ideas being put out there by other smiths, craftspeople, and artists that I feel both kinship and creative difference with.  I'll try to talk about why I think their work, ideas, and the questions they raise are important for me and how I would like my work to reflect my influences and give credit where it is due.  I'm also just really happy to share the work of talented and passionate individuals, for the amount of inspiration and excitement I get from others is incredibly awesome. 

So basically, I'm going to announce some stuff about other people's projects and provide links and pictures (with permission).  I'll probably talk about my perception of their work overall, hopefully without pigeonholing them, but their voices are strong, and I just wanna get the word out.  Here we go! 



The first project that's been on my mind lately and has made me whistle and say "awww yeaaah" is this excellent Merovingian langsax collaboration between none other than the Michigan iron-smelting maniac Zeb Deming and the Wisconsin blade wizard Scott Roush!

Zeb gazing adoringly at his iron smelting stack.

First the smiths: Zeb Deming is a daring, patient, and talented ironmaker who has taught himself well the methods of bloomery smelting (producing iron from iron ore) and hearth melting (melting iron in a small furnace to carburize/decarburize it at will).  He is also a proficient bladesmith and pattern-welder who has drawn attention to himself though the use of unusual and exciting steels and irons, such as his own bloom steel, hearth steel, and meteoric iron.  Not only do these materials lend his work an indisputable authenticity in fact and in feel, they give his pieces infinite uniqueness, a deeply-imprinted sole-authorship (see this post by Myles Mulkey) and intrinsic story (see this one by me).  He's also an incredibly nice gentleman; "Michigan maniac" only works because of the alliteration. 

Scott with his interpretation of a Norwegian langsax.

Scott Roush, one of the preeminent swordsmiths of the American Midwest, has a style.  Anyone who's seen two of his pieces gets it and won't forget: stark, bold contrasting blade steels; dark, earthy handles with a visceral feel of hand-made and well-used.  From the get-go, he made a deep impression with clever and skilled manipulation of texture and finish.  Recently, he has been breaking new and fascinating ground for himself like a wild man, fearlessly exploring techniques with impressive degrees of success: smelting, wire inlay, carving, and (particularly) casting.  I might add that his blade photography is top notch (considering his already impressive career as a photographer).  I've never met him, but I can say that he's an encouraging presence in the scene and a deeply inspiring fellow!

Now the inspiration: Scott cited the langsax to the left, which is attributed to the Merovignian-era Franks, as the major model for the collaboration, at least as far as blade dimensions, profile, and fittings.  Materials, decoration, and organic fittings were more or less up in the air, and I can honestly say I'm proud of what they're doing with this freedom.



Zeb's steel is so clean and even and yet still so obviously handmade.  A visible grain stretched from hours of folding, but so well refined and homogenized with care and practice.  Another piece of the same steel
has never been made, and no one will ever make steel exactly the same as Zeb's; it's truly as creative a process as the blademaking, but making one's own materials is different than making a piece or even the tools to make a piece.  It's like mixing your own paint from plants; not only are you connecting hands with centuries of people through a material: your hand is occupying the same space, moving with them, learning with them.  Zeb put a piece of his soul in this steel to merge with that of everyone who's ever done the same thing and gained the same knowledge that he has.


Scott has taken it upon himself, in finishing this blade, to bring it to a serious next level of existence.  I have already mentioned Scott's strong and flavorful sense of texture and finish-feel, but I can see that in this blade he is stepping beyond his already palpable style and integrating totally badass technique in a really tasteful and awesome way.  The inlay, first of all, is nothing outrageous or glaringly inauthentic, which seems to follow so often on the heels of skill acquisition.  The pattern clearly does not overstep the feel of the piece, which is a difficult thing to gauge accurately.  Next, it is clean and very well executed, and I really look forward to see Scott's development and use of this technique!


I'm a big fan of choice of materials for this sax, particularly in Scott's use of local native copper (below).  Copper is, to my knowledge, the only metal that occurs naturally in usable quantities, and the fact that he found and is applying this material as it would have been in ancient days is awesome. 

Another interesting element of this piece that shakes the imagination is the inlaid copper element that Scott has cryptically referred to as the 'ellefen head'.  Clearly it's supposed to represent some sort of otherworldly being without any real explanation of who that is or why it's there; however, the mystery of the thing really adds something to the character of the piece for me.  Scott fearlessly adds storytelling (or story-facilitating) elements to his pieces, and I appreciate it.  For more information on the concept of otherworldly visages in period art, see Petr Florianek's post on what he calls the "fierce face" motif.
 
The overall profile of the blade is slim and yet strong.  I'm getting to the part that's so difficult to explain about blades I love when I see them, but goddamn, the lines are right.  Everything about this object screams of a past age to me, or at least a past age of my imagination.  It grabs me by whatever piece of me wants to grab it, examine it from every angle, fall into it.  There's another world in this piece, and Zeb and Scott and dragging it out.

Mediaeval Scabbard (Old)

The mediaeval arming sword I forged under the direction of Owen Bush was in want of completion.  It was naked, unfinished, and lacked the whole package befitting this thing that wanted no longer to  be a part of me but to seek its own fortune and adventure.  I knew I had to fit it for its journey and send it on its way.  

I started with two materials in mind: poplar and goatskin, hand-dyed with indigo leaves by Jeff Pringle. 

After I had caved the profile of the blade into two slats of poplar, I glued them together around the edges and shaped the outside of the scabbard.  With file and sandpaper, I matched the fit of the scabbard mouth to the curves of the crossguard.  Next, I cut the leather to a size that wrapped around my scabbard core and used an awl to punch holes along both edges for sewing the seam on the back. 

Adhered first with rabbit-skin glue, sewn on the back with waxed linen thread (which took hours), waterproofed with a beeswax and turpentine mixture, and tightened by contraction over a gentle flame, the scabbard was ready for its belt.  I used a thin burgundy leather for the suspension knot and sewed it to stouter leather belt-stock for the baldric/sword belt. 

I hadn't much experience in coppersmithing, but I was able to whip up the below belt buckle with some inspiration from a Gotlandic original in Jeff Pringle's collection, some light hammering, and quite a bit of tweaking with pliers and files.  The fit turned out nicely, and I'm rather proud of it! 

It was also my first practical application of rivets, and I take a lot of joy in that kind of simple mechanical fastening.  The chape at the bottom of the scabbard is brass, patinated with ferric nitrate.   It is constructed of two halves like the scabbard core, but soldered instead of glued.  This was also my first application of silver soldering, and I found that I liked it very much!  There was a lot of technique introduced to me in this work, and it helped that Jim Austin had a wonderful batch of his own homebrew oatmeal stout on tap!

Rather proud of the rivets on the sword belt terminal:

Less proud of those on the buckle.  I have to confess a much less than sober state during their completion.  It was a merry night. 

Time to speed it up

Well, I've spent a long time trying to use this blog to keep a record of my journey into this world of hand work and soul work, but it's really hard to write about stuff that happened last year when there's so much awesome stuff happening this year. 

SO, without further ado, I'll try to bring it up to speed. 

Glad that's settled.

Arctic Fire 2012 - Golden Days of Oakland Part 2

As Oakland's balmy summer of 2012 passed it's mid-way mark, I spent my days polishing blades, striking for Jim on various axes, and drinking his home-brewed beer in return. It felt like it was the place to be, with my mind tuned to internet rumblings in the swordsmithing world, and so much tangible evidence of it around me. 

But it was more than just the exciting murmurs of enthusiasts.  Something was brewing that was going to change the game.  It was announced that, in the finals days of June, visionaries of the craft and art, poet-smiths and makers of artifacts at once new and ancient, would convene in the majestic peaks of Alaska.  Dave Stephens, a very talented bladesmith and unparalleled giver to our movement, was to host them all at his shop and broadcast their esoteric rituals and practices live across the all-permeating waves of the internet-plane.  Jim and Jeff, with their unique insight to the special skill of axe-smithing, enhanced by their in-depth and first-hand examination of iron-age Germanic axes, were asked to contribute a short video for broadcast. 


I had recently tried my hand at linoleum block-printing, and carved blocks to print these shirts, at Jim's request:

I printed them on t-shirts for everyone involved who wanted one, and we got down to business.  Anna Geyer has filmed lots of Jim's smithing videos in the past, and she was all set up to begin.  After a quick glass of Jim's incredible homebrew oatmeal stout to unleash our inner thespians, we took up our positions and played our parts.  It got spliced around a sped-up video of me, Nathan Smith, and Jake striking while Jim leads on an axe of his. It's a great video because the change you see is very gradual, and then all of a sudden at the end there's an axe and you realize how subtly genius it was.  

But honestly, those warm nights under long sunsets were spent doing things like the below: using Jeff Pringle's spare cable-damascus throwing knives on unassuming boxes of Lanesplitter pizza. 

Jim takes his aim, beer in hand for support!

We gathered in the shop, with a projector and massive speakers, to watch the Arctic Fire event!  Captivated by the magical and moving presentations of Dave Stephens, Jake Powning, Peter Johnsson, Michael Pikula, Dave Delagardelle, J. Arthur Loose, we learned a lot and had plenty to talk about.  Overall, the event left us brimming with inspiration and enthusiasm.

Not to mention vicious blows of an ancient blood-feud such as this one, between myself and the singularly despicable Candian:

Golden Days of Oakland

Obviously, the months following my return from England were filled with exploration and excitement, testing the limits of what I had learned, and discovering a hundred new doors too be knocked upon.  It's always true that the more you learn, the more you realize you have far more to learn, and it's apparent to me every day, using my hands and mind at the same time.  Sometimes that can be intimidating, but it's comforting to know beyond any doubt that you'll never run out of things to learn.  There's just too much.

Well, I heat treated, ground, and polished what I had for blades.  The san-mai seax turned out alright; here it is on my sanding setup, un-etched, with the contrast visible in the reflecting light.  

 
A very new experiment came in the form of this large, almost bowie-style knife made of 1084.  I made this one to see if I could figure out how to forge a knife with an integral bolster, which I partially achieved.  It was, in my opinion, much to thin to count as a real bolster, but I became familiar with filing techniques and where I needed to hammer to make the bolster. 

However, the most interesting experiment this knife posed was the Japanese-style differential hardening.  The aesthetic/visual effect is called hamon, and is used to describe the visible line on the blade between the hard edge and the soft spine.  Before the blade is hardened in the quench, the spine is covered with clay, effectively insulating it and keeping the heat in as the blade cools down in the quench.  The slow cooling of the insulated spine is different from the rapid cooling of the edge, resulting in different steel crystal shapes on the molecular level.  That means a hard edge, soft spine, barely perceptible transition, but defined differentiation.  I'll definitely be making use of this technique in the future! 

Honestly, the below is a picture of some of Jim Austin's smelting alchemy that I do not understand whatsoever. 

I could, however, understand the chisel he made for a double groove with a raised middle. He made it for embellishing the soft mild-steel bodies of his peerless viking axes.  I tried it out on the trial piece.  Guess which grooves are mine!  [It's really truly actually the two on the right]

These were warm days filled with sun and sweat and excitement.  I shared many hours in daylight and in dark with Jim, Jeff, Nate Smith, Nina Heckman, Ryan Burkhart, Dan Hopper, and Anna Geyer with sun and stars above us and hard work and good fun around us.  Oakland how I do miss ye.  

COLLABORAMA

There are two people who I have had the strange experience of knowing only by way of the internet, seeing each other only in pictures and speaking only with written word.  This kind of relationship is somewhat unique to my generation; it's like having lots of pen-pals.  Nevertheless, the two individuals of which I speak continue to inspire me every time I hear the merest squeak out of them.  They are both glowing with whatever that unnameable thing is which draws me so deeply into this journey of time and hands, of the eternity of organic materials and what they share with those who affect change on them.

These two I speak of are Luke Shearer and Myles Mulkey.  They are not seasoned veterans of bladecraft but enthusiastic young artists whose already impressive work shows more than just potential for many years of thrilling exploration ahead, new things being said and fresh things being made, the breathing lungs of our community because of their individuality.  They are full to the brim with the light that stories and brushstrokes bring us, and are carrying it forward.

Here is a link to Luke's making of the blade:  http://lukeshearerbladesmith.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/seax-collaberation/

They have chosen to re-create, in their own vision, what I find possibly one of the seaxiest of saxes.  It's a large, broken-back war seax in the most well-known Anglo-Saxon pattern, and speaks very much to what I feel the essence of the Germanic war knife is.  I gained a deep appreciation for this type of object during my time with Owen Bush, having seen him work lovingly on them in all stages of development.  They bespeak hardiness, mercilessness and strength, as well as refinement, pleasing lines, aesthetic foresight, and surprising lightness and wieldiness.  I sincerely hope this is a piece I someday am fortunate enough to hold.

A picture I took of Owen's rough-forged but well-established sense of what a sax "is" in shape, material, style, and process.

To me, this project stands as a beacon of potential for a new era of this strangely niche art we have come to occupy.  Their work embodies the spirit that's hard to describe but so easy to feel, of stories that mean things to us, however difficult it is to say exactly what it is that they mean.  In our effort to explain it we must search within ourselves and without, and the world that pervades. 

To read more on Luke's very articulate and well-thought-out approach to story-smithing, read any of his blog, but in particular this fascinating article where he speaks of the inextricable spirituality of his work:

http://lukeshearerbladesmith.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/124/

To learn more about Myles' powerful and holistic approach to where he stands in the grander scheme of craft and time, and how that guides his hands and heart:

http://mylesmulkey.blogspot.com/2012/11/on-making-things.html

The Mysticism of the Sword in Germanic Myth and Culture

In my first year of college, I took a class called Ancient Epic, where we examined elements and themes of archetypal ancient stories, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, the Táin, and the Mahabharata.  I can honestly say that my imagination was seized so heavily by this class that I could rarely take notes for sketching places, artifacts, and characters.  However, I was able to channel my love of myth and my research into Germanic anthropology into this paper, which generally identifies the place of swords in the stories and life of the Migration and Viking periods, and integrates their mystical and magical reality to those who made and wielded them. 

Click on the link below to read it!

The Mysticism of the Sword in Germanic Myth and Culture (PDF)

Craft & Classes

Right now, I'm trying to fulfill my love of reading and learning while growing in this craft I have such unbridled passion for.  So, right now I'm living in Boston and taking continuing education night/weekend classes at MassArt, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and the North Bennet Street School. 

MassArt

Bladesmithing, JD Smith:  This might be the only general bladesmithing class offered at any college, and let me tell you, it teaches you how to make a knife.  My techniques have been revolutionized by the teacher, JD Smith, a technical master and tower of experience.  While his personal style is not what I am interested in making, I am getting an incredible amount from him and this class, emphasizing craft's transcendence of individual into community that I so love.  Especially with MassArt's superior equipment and well-kept facilities, I can proceed with confidence and continue to challenge myself in myriad new ways.  I have quite a lot of standards and ideas I intend to bring back to the Hampshire College shop when I return there.  It's also fantastic to be surrounded with enthusiastic young bladesmiths who want to do very different things than I do art-wise, but who I can connect with over materials and tools.  Likewise, I'm very glad that my skills and confidence have increased such that I see my more lofty conceptual art-sword goals realizing in the near future.  You can see my progress on the album "In Progress" on my Photobucket page, which I've provided a link to, but will be blogging about eventually.

Billet being folded to 350 layers

Above billet in the form of an unfinished project

Folk Art, Folk Craft, and Material Culture, Tim Correll:  I love this class.  We've been talking about what separates folk objects from art objects, specific folk traditions that outline those differences, and spending some objective time on those traditions themselves.  Recently, our readings have been on traditions of whalers' scrimshaw, the use of newspaper as wallpaper in Appalachian mountain houses, and fashions in Puritan gravestone head decorations (death's heads, cherubs, everything in between).  We've also done a little conceptual reading, like an article called "Why We Need Things" by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi.  This is my first art history class, and I'm really enjoying it.  

Puritan mortuary ring - so awesome!

 

School of the Museum of Fine Arts:
Chasing and Repousse, Linda Kindler-Priest: This class started out a little frustrating but my mind has opened to it.  It's possibly the most meditative and slow-moving of my classes, requiring a great deal of attention to detail, and my growth in it is slow but sure.  I'm beginning to see the vast range of textures and movement that can be achieved with chisels on annealed copper.  The ability to apply them with control is coming slower, but I've been enjoying it in that painful craft way.  My coolest piece so far has been in response to the thematic parameter of "movement"-- I made a miniature landscape of a river moving through a mountainous area.  Hopefully I fully finish it, but there are in-progress pictures of it in the Jewelry and Woodworking album on my Photobucket as well. 

Miniature copper mountain/riverscape exploring texture and movement

North Bennet Street School:
Fundamentals of Fine Woodworking, Sam Chase:  As far as classes introducing new things goes, this might be my favorite class and the one that I have made the most progress in.  It so utterly fulfilling to tune my chisels and hand-plane to perfect sharpness, flat and square, taking care to make sure they don't make a single impression they're not supposed to.  With a well-tuned steel tool, some woods are no match for me.  Others are trickier adversaries.  I can bend it to my will in many ways, but not willingly.  I still must beware of grain direction, tear-out, and cutting myself.  It's safe to say that this class is thrilling; the emotional highs and lows of this new material and working environment is unique.  The school itself is beautiful.  I could not have imagined the many uses of my few tools, and I find myself picking up the skills and mindset quickly.  Again, pictures on the Photobucket!

Lethally sharp 1" wood chisel

The most beautiful 5th floor of the school in Boston's North End

Gratifying noises, smells, and the bone-knowing feeling of a good shaving

 Extra-curricularly, I have been writing a bit of conceptual stuff I'd like to upgrade into essays, such as the nature of swords as symbols as well as objects. Stay tuned for that as it become more refined!