There and back again...and I hope the
wiser for it. And of course, I had every intention of writing while
I was away but it turned out the trip was packed solid. Filled with
new faces, new friends (and time with valuable far off friends), new
perspectives and ideas and new (and reminders of older) insights. My
brain was just too full. I needed time to process it all.
So here I am having been back again for
a bit – also full...and hoping to record some of those lessons and
experiences and insights in a way that might be coherent if I'm
lucky. With some extra luck maybe it will be helpful to some others
the way it has been helpful to me.
I will deal with the places and
experiences one per post or it will all get way too long.
So, one of the experiences on the list
was to go to Belgium for an international Blacksmithing Event to
create panels to go around the new WW1 cenotaph that was created. I
thought long and hard about it and decided just to be the
photographer and cheering section for my partner. Having just failed
so often and so spectacularly the last thing I was ready for was to
work with unfamiliar people on an international team creating a panel
in two days time in front of the public. Screwing up my own work is
one thing. Screwing up someone else's work, in front of the public,
on a 2 day deadline? Not nearly brave enough in spite of the great
opportunity it might have offered me to prove something positive to
myself.
I ended up with the best of both
worlds. I watched, I listened, I learned, I photographed...I got to
watch tons of techniques and ideas of how to make things work. I
saw some really great project design and management skills, and some
not-so-great ones. I met so many people, numerous of whom are now
part of my own cache of international contacts and friends. I was
very kindly invited in to take part in the team my partner was on by
the project leaders (Shona Johnson & Pete Hill from Ratho Byres
Forge in Scotland) when they found out I was also a smith, but I
declined – though I did use the opportunity to get beyond the
barriers for some better photographs. So in spite of chickening out
I got a lot out of it.
I attended a few of the lectures
offered as well. The one I found the most compelling was given by a
representative from Hereford College on how they run the program and
teach the students to develop a practice....this was to prove to be a
theme for the trip. The way that they think about the arts in Europe
is wholly different from my exposure to what we do here in North
America – at least as far as I've seen. There were things I took
away from that lecture that I hope will help me to develop further
faster. The main thing was seeing their work studios, in which the
wall are quite literally covered with their ideas so that they are
surrounded by their own creative inspiration all day every day.
Perhaps that is taught here in art college, but never having been a
part of that world it is certainly not something I'd seen or
experienced before. I know that scientists have that kind of
environment – whiteboards & chalkboards everywhere...I think
that taking something from that holds possibilities – for me, at
least.
The lecture I'd have liked to attend
but missed was from South Africa – a blacksmith shop that is wholly
solar powered...admittedly not as practical here in Canada as in
South Africa, but still, food for thought...
There were public demonstrations not only of the blacksmiths at work creating the panels, but also of a working Farrier - horses were brought in to be shod, some of whom had clearly never, ever been shod before - and others who were a lot more comfortable with the experience. Watching the skill and the care with which the farrier worked was pretty amazing. It really is separate from what we do. And it REALLY is specialized. Watching someone do it well is pretty amazing.
There was also a gallery of incredible
international work for the event – all on the theme of the
anniversary of the war – it was called Transitions – how do you
move from war to peace and back again....what does it take, how do
those transitions come about...it was – as blacksmiths, also about
the transition of materials. Some of the pieces were truly amazing
and the ideas behind them were very thought provoking. You can see some of the work here:
When we went to look at the gallery, we
stumbled on a space that had yet another art project going on called
Coming World Remember Me. The public was invited to participate and
press their own moulded sculpture – made of clay that was half from
Germany and half from Belgium mixed together (if I understood it
correctly). They could do some minor decoration on it and each of
those pieces was representative of a life lost in the war. Each participant got a "passport" with a dog tag naming a life lost in the war. 
and here:
For 5 euros, we took part, and it was
amazingly fun, moving, simple and I learned a lot about the war and
the project from our facilitator. It was brilliant.
And of course, the people...there were
a handful of other Canadians there, as well as people from all over
the globe. Admittedly there were a LOT of participants from the UK
since they were the ones who put the whole thing together, and those
were a lot of the people I met and got to spend some time with, but I
did meet and learn about practices and shops and schools all over,
which was hugely valuable. That is about as much of that as my brain
can manage for now.
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