Home Made: Emotion of the Handmade Space
This object is the first completed leaf I ever forged during my apprenticeship as a blacksmith in highschool, it was made as a final test of the basics I learned. I have carried it everywhere on my keychain or had it tucked away safely in my room, now it accompanies clipped to my briefcase. This leaf shows my first foray into serious crafting, something that would define how I fill any space I call home. The feeling of being surrounded by objects I have made is an integral part of my acceptance of a space and something I believe everyone inherently enjoys. The feeling of having something that you can truly call yours in sight at home is what makes your own space unique and loved.
Materials
This leaf is made of common hot rolled solid 1018 mild steel square stock that has been hammered into shape by hand. 1018 is a softer steel used often for decorative purposes, it can be used to make elaborate gates and fences and that is in fact what it was most used for in the forge I worked in. Mild steel is used for decoration because it is more malleable, square stock is a common choice due to it being an easy shape to start with, and hot rolled steel is chosen as it does not come pre tempered or with a descaled finish on the outside, things that would be ruined regardless by the forging process. The material is utilitarian, there is no better way to start something ornamental than a bare product to enact your creativity upon.
Form
The leaf is small, easily fitting into a pocket, with a curved tail meant to fit on a ring or band. The metal has been darkened and pitted with hammer marks by the forging process giving it the pleasant ‘worked’ appearance characteristic to hand forged pieces. The size and shape was chosen for two reasons. First, this was a test of my basic forging skills, my ability to make a point, flatten it out, and then draw out the metal and shape it. This teaches that no matter the size of the piece being worked on, fine work must be done. Second, at my forge you are supposed to carry your first difficult piece with you, as a reminder of how far you’ve come in your craft.
History
Wonderfully, the history of this piece in particular starts with me. However the history that brought the materials and skills to my hands and allowed me to make this piece is millennia long and appreciated universally, the emotion evoked by smithing perfectly summarized in the closing words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Village Blacksmith:
“Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.”
The Blacksmith has been an essential part of life for every human civilization. Their finished pieces have been mysticized as magical, admired as art, and appreciated as tools. The ability of a human to take a stone and make it into the nails that hold a house together and the tools that furnish it has excited imaginations throughout history. Humans have had dieites to smithing and myths of their swords, all while going down the road to their smokey shops for the day's necessities. My leaf is the tiniest of footnotes in this long storied history, yet learning the smith's ability to turn the harshest elements into household objects has come to symbolize concept of home and how one creates it.
Personal Relationship
My personal relationship to this object is deep. I forged it after many, many attempts and even then it still came out a little wrong. However, these imperfections are what made it mine and have come to embody what is familiar to me. The leaf has accompanied me for years on my adventures, being a constant familiar weight in my pocket as I went through the changes of my life. I have attached it to my keys, my bags, and displayed it in the many rooms I’ve lived in; in the end it has come to be the first thing I needed with me to show a place is home. The fact that it is so small and so easily brought with me has forged my opinion on home: home is not just what you make of it, but what you’ve made in it.
Home Made
I have made each of these artifacts by hand and sprinkled them throughout my home. They represent my skills, my hobbies, and my desire to try new things. Each is from a different artistic medium. I have sewn some, painted some, sculpted some. They relate to times spent with a friend, a love, and myself. Some were done in a day, others took weeks and weeks. For every single one of them, when I had an idea of what I wanted, I chose not to buy it but make it. This is because home in its truest sense is simply not something you can purchase, it is not just an object or a mere physical space. It does not appear all at once - it is collected, crafted, and loved together. Home is your repository, your respite. You must make it yours. For these things which I have constructed are, above all else,
home-made.
