Jan 4, 2016
Welcome to 2016 on the Blacksmither Radio show. This is
episode #55 and I’m going to talk about a few things I have planned
for you and for me.
The theme of 2016 is “Education” for me, for BlacksmitHer radio,
and for you! I thought it was fitting since the theme of this
year’s ABANA conference is “education” too! A few things that
are playing into this theme and the first one is super exciting to
me!
I’m introducing BlacksmitHer Academy, www.blacksmitheracademy.com
. The main mission of the academy is offer top notch
blacksmithing education online. You will be able to learn
from the best blacksmiths around the world right from your own
home. It’s like I’m bringing the instructors to you – no
travel expenses needed.
There will be:
- Live blacksmithing workshops that are online in my new virtual
classroom, they will have specific dates and times
- And eventually professionally created online technique courses,
where you can learn at your own pace. Each course will have
pictured tutorials, audio of the instructor talking though the
steps, pdf handouts and interactive communication with the other
students in the course and the instructor. I’m talking with
ABANA on tying in their Controlled Hand Forging certification
levels so the students going through each level will have direction
throughout the series. Also looking into giving out certifications
of completed levels. But that’s in the beginning stages right
now and there’s a lot to work with that path!
So I have the first two live online workshops scheduled for
January 20th, a Wednesday and January 28th, a Thursday. Both at 5pm
PST and each workshop will cover 8 different ways of punching and
drifting with Mark Aspery as the teacher.
He will cover 8 modules split into 2 workshops, each about 90
minutes in length.
By signing up and registering for the workshops, you’ll receive
exclusive access to my private state-of-the-art virtual classroom
where you can chit chat with each other and ask the instructor
questions.
I will be hosting a few free live “Happy Hours” on Thirsty
Thursdays Jan 7th and 14th in the classroom before the workshops so
everyone can get a chance to check out the room, get used to it and
chat with each other and about Mark’s Punch and Drift
workshop. It’ll be fun, please join me at the “Happy Hour”
events, I’ll be emailing my list details and I will post them on
the BlacksmitHer website under the live blacksmithing classes tab,
so stay tuned for those details.
I will have the registration sign up links set up soon,
hopefully this week.
I’ve got a few educational things planned for my own growth in
blacksmithing. I will be travelling to Argentina for 10 days
in March with 30 other blacksmiths and architects. We are
going to Buenos Aires, the Paris of Latin America. This city
enjoyed a building boom for 50 years, from 1880-1930, as the
capital of what was once one the ten wealthiest countries in the
world. As a city lacking in major new construction over the
last 80 years, Buenos Aires has felt the loss of the oral
traditions of craft. Along with reviving craft, the populace is
enthusiastic about the need to preserve their priceless
architectural heritage. After we explore the city with locals on
the first few days, we will divide into two groups. One group will
present three days of blacksmithing demonstrations, 5 stations to
be held in a public park, while the second group,
US architects with an interest in preservation, will hold
meetings and presentations to share their experiences, hear BA
architects speak on their work, and seek solutions to current
problems in preservation and adaptive re-use of historical
buildings. We will be dancing the tango at night and one day
we will experience gaucho life on an estancia or ranch. More
information can be found on the website http://www.restorationcraftsmen.org/
and I will include some onsite interviews in future
podcasts.
I’m’ also trying to plan a trip to Israel this year to take
classes from Zeevik Gottleib and Uri Hofi. I don’t know if I
told you but I have taken a few lessons from Zeevik online and I
really want to learn more about their ergonomic forging and
everything else they will teach me. I’m really looking
forward to this plan coming together in 2016. Believe me,
I’ll share everything I can from that experience.
As far as the direction of BlacksmitHer Radio, I sent out a
survey a few months ago to my email list to find out what you
wanted to hear and the results were overwhelmingly leaning towards
learning new techniques and new projects. So I will be
following the education theme to include reading more technical and
“how to” articles from various ABANA Affiliate newsletters, with
their permission of course!
Also by interviewing more Schools that offer blacksmith
instruction and courses. And will interview the instructors
too. I’ve interviewed one of them, the Adirondack Folk School
in episode #45. I will be talking more about what courses
they will be offering this year too.
I want to thank all of the sponsors of the show in 2015, they
truly keep the show going, they cover the costs of the show, not
all of the hours put into each episode but at least the hard costs
of hosting the show are covered by the sponsors. I’ll admit I’m a
bit picky when it comes to who I want sponsoring the show. I
want them to be not only relevant to blacksmithing but I want them
to have quality products to offer you
So see ya later 2015 looking back, I made a few mistakes, I’ve
been Impatient, at times a little tactless, and hard to bear with
through some episodes. I might not always ask the right questions
of my guests or have the right guest for that matter. So my
friends, I ask you to forgive my past mistakes and continue to bear
with me as I forge ahead with this show and other endeavors I bring
to you this year. Welcome to 2016, the here and now. I
hope everyone has the best and safest year of their lives.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Mark Twain “Twenty years
from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you
didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your
sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”