another day at the office

I just arrived home from a long but positive day at another craft show. StArt on the Street in Worcester, MA. There was a great crowd, all generally happy and interested in supporting handmade. Even if a show is slow sales wise good energy can make up for that.



I ended up in a very entertaining location across from the metal workers. There were about four young strong men heating metal in a forge and hammering(with really big sledgehammers) all day. It was mesmerizing to watch. Also cool was seeing them use many of the same techniques as I do on my jewelry but on such a large scale.



When I was just a wee one my father figure had a large forge and would spend hours repetitively heating, hammering and shaping iron. I'm not exactly sure what he was making now that I think about it.  hmmm... Well anyway, my brother and I would crawl under the forge after everything had cooled off in search of 'clinker' the shiny silver looking lumps of incombustible leftovers from them coal. I'm not exactly sure what we did with those either.
He passed that anvil he used for metalworking down to me. That's where so much of the great texture in my jewelry comes from.

It's also my son's favorite seat while I work.