Traditions: Ohio Heritage Fellows; 302; Roy Adams interview, part 2 of 5

Q:

ROY: Blacksmithing has undergone a resurgent here, uh, resurgence here recently. Um, it’s done this a couple times in the past, once was in the early 60’s, well, the later 60’s early 70’s, uh, that’s where the craft... a lot of blacksmithing clubs here in the United States got re..., uh, uh, how do you want to say it? They... they grew exponentially, uh, it’s always been a thing kinda like more in England and Great Britain and things like that, it’s never really went away per say, uh, less shops, less specialty shops and things like that. Uh, now with blacksmithing we’ve, we’ve went back to where we do... we’re getting back into a place where we specialize in certain things. Uh, there was a period of time where blacksmiths were highly special... specialized in things, just... we didn’t just shod horses, um, and no we didn’t just make knives or things like that, uh, but we made everything, hardware, anything you can think of that was made in metal came from a blacksmith shop. And, then it, it kind of... there were specialties in that and then as the industrial revolution came about it became less special, blacksmiths starting doing more and more everything becoming kind of like your general handyman or mechanic and then of course it almost died out and then there was a resurgency that, you know, that happened right around the later 60’s to early 70’s and then it kind of petered out for a little while and now we are just seeing a new resurgency in interest into, you know, kind of like going back to the land type thing, you know, trying to get connected with heritage and craft and so that is, that is just now kind of starting really. It’s kinda... it’s just begun and so, so there’s a lot of good growth there and growth opportunity for learning about it, finding tools and materials and, uh, you know, education in it.

Q:

ROY: It’s important to keep any craft or skill set alive especially the skill set of blacksmithing alive because it’s where we come from, it’s part of our heritage, it’s, uh, you know, we live in such a digital world now, everything’s done online, um, you know, there’s a lot of kids that believe, you know, milk comes from the grocery store not from a cow, uh, and, uh, I’m sure everybody’s heard some of those analogies before, uh, but it is very im...important to preserve those traditions and those crafts as we go along because then you lose touch, you lose touch eventually. If no one baked anymore we’d all forget how to, you know, read a recipe or to be able to mix ingredients and things, much the same way if, you know, no one whittled anymore on wood or no one forged anymore, the concepts around understanding how metal moves and what you can do with it and its properties and things like that would ultimately be lost, um, to future generations. So, that’s why it’s very important to keep craft alive.

Q:

ROY: What I enjoy most about being in my shop is the ability to work a good... good long days’ worth of work and feel like I’ve accomplished something. Literally see something that’s going to stand the test of time unless somebody throws it away or takes it to the local scrap yard somewhere, someday, which may happen, I don’t like to thing about that but, uh, it may happen. But, whenever I was doing my original work, like in heating and air conditioning a lot of that type work would just go away, you know, in 15 years it’s gonna be replaced by some other sweaty installer out there, you know, they’re gonna rip it out and gone it goes down in the scrap bin as where with doing blacksmithing and doing it as an art there’s... there’s real high probability that your work will still be around for generations to come. Uh, in the line of work that I do I create heirloom type pieces, stuff that people are gonna pass down for generations and generations that will long out live me and people will be like, well, what’s that touch mark? Who made this thing? Um, you know a hundred years out in the future and, uh, I like that the most about my work is the reward, you know, of feeling accomplished at the end of the day like... like the days been done well.

Q:

ROY: So, in my line of work I work on just about anything. In the earlier days I worked... in the earlier days of my blacksmithing career I worked on anything that would come through the door and keep the lights on and, uh, the roof over the head but now I have now been able to have been fortunate and blessed enough to be able to shift more off into only the things that I want to make or create, uh, I kind of get to pick and choose which is really nice. The things that I make the most of here recently in my last two years or so has been a lot of copper vessels, a lot of copper bowls, things of that nature. Um, I’ve shipped stuff to all over the world, every continent. I have a piece of my artwork on, uh, the stuff that I like to make the most is things that make you... that pull you in deeper, that pull you in deeper. So, they’re striking at a distance and as you get closer they almost unveil more and more about the piece, as you get closer there’s more and more details. So, I would say my work that I like to make the most is a lot of high end detailed type work. And, you’ll see that in some of my copper work, uh, a lot of my steel work I do that too. There’s stuff that almost goes unbeknownst to the untrained eye but there’s stuff... small hammer facets I put in just to reflect the light a certain way just so the piece will stand off a table if you laid it on a flat surface. Say it’d be fire pokers or meat skewers or, uh, kitchen set, you know, it’ll create certain shadows and outlines that, uh, make it more striking in the home.

Q:

ROY: I get my inspiration mainly from, uh, (NOISE)