Handforged by Kirsten Skiles: Smiles and Leafy Stuff

Hi There!

I've been busy with lawn work, roses, paperwork, shopping, chauffeuring, re-organization, and catching up on Pirates online.

I have to giggle every time I see myself as a swashbuckling cartoon pirate, with those clothes. My character is wearing the pink shirt. I think I forgot to give my character hips when I started off. (I'm a fairly happy person and am easily amused.)

Stay on track! back to metalwork!
So I mentioned our fieldtrip to Doug Wilson's shop in my Haystack journaling. While there, Doug demonstrated a fairly simple veined leaf, with the vein created by folding. It's a great intro project because it works the basics- tapering and spreading, with no special tooling. While he was demonstrating, I remembered my first blacksmith class, over 16 years ago. Rick Smith taught me how to make the exact same leaf, telling me that it was a Doug Wilson leaf. I made variations of that same leaf over and over again for a long time. So many years later, I've changed the leaf, evolved it into my own style. My leaves are curvier and have an implied rather than folded vein. The artistic style overall is different too.

It was really wonderful to meet the artist and the leaf form who, in a roundabout way, introduced me to the skills I needed to follow my own creative path. (Coincidentally, Rick Smith is teaching at Haystack right now, the session after mine.) After Doug's demo, back at Haystack, I made these little forged steel leaf pendants, bringing me back full circle, reminding me of the way knowledge is passed through the craft and how the little simple things do change lives.
ivy pend 3-1
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