Subject: Haystack Mountain School of Crafts
Upcoming Classes
Haystack Mountain School of Crafts is an international craft school located on the coast of Maine offering intensive workshop sessions in various media, scholarships available. Over 100 scholarships are awarded annually. Applicants may seek scholarship support in more than one category.
Please visit our website at http://www.haystack-mtn.org for more information about our workshops, the application process, and to download an application form.
2011 Summer Session Blacksmithing Workshops at Haystack
Session 1 (May 29-June 10)
Concept Development and Design for Blacksmiths:Exercises in Distilling Chaos
This workshop will begin with collaborative group exercises, making large chaotic group drawings, creating visual chaos together. We will investigate, dissect, and explore these drawings, refining these exercises into individual and group assignments. Supported by group critiques, participants will make models, explore dimension, scale, and joinery. Participants will forge elements that have evolved from the initial group efforts. Design, engineering of projects, and making proposals will be discussed. Traditional joinery will be a focus-rivets, mortise and tenon, hot collars, and lots of forge welding. Individual projects will be limited to 2' X 2' X 2'. Solid basic forging skills required.
DOUGLAS E. WILSON as been a metalsmith since 1972, operating hisforge on Little Deer Isle, Maine, since 1981. He produces primarily commissioned work-functional, architectural, and sculptural - contemporary designs deeply rooted in traditional process and joinery. Doug Wilson has taught forging, drawing, design workshops, throughout the US and Canada, including workshops at Haystack, Penland, Peters Valley, and at ABANA conferences and events. His work has been included in many exhibitions, most recently, Iron: Forged, Tempered, Quenched at the Houston Center of Contemporary Craft, Texas, and IRON 2010 at the National Ornamental Metals Museum, Tennessee, and is in publications including Anvil's Ring and Metalsmith. www.dewilsonforge.com
Session 2 (June 12-24)
Catching Fire
Learn the basics of blacksmithing and produce original, expressive sculptures in steel. Forging, forgewelding, cutting, and welding with a torch and electric welders will be covered. Participants will practice by forging hooks and other assigned objects that will insure the skills are fully understood before beginning work on sculptures. Along with traditional blacksmithing techniques, innovative methods of forming metal will be investigated and one piece will be produced by inflating a closed form. Surface finishing techniques, from traditional to experimental, will be explored. Students should come prepared to get dirty, work hard, and have fun learning together. All levels welcome.
ELIZABETH BRIM was an instructor at Columbus State University, Georgia before becoming a full time studio artist and moving to Penland, North Carolina. She has an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Georgia. Elizabeth Brim has created a body of sculptural work that interprets feminine imagery (high-heeled shoes, tutus, pillows) using traditional and innovative blacksmithing techniques. She was honored by the Metal Museum in Memphis as the 2009 Master Metalsmith. In 2010 she received the Bealer Award from the Artist Blacksmiths Association of North America. Elizabeth Brim has taught blacksmithing at many craft schools and has been a visiting artist at Cranbrook Academy of Art and several universities.
