Blacksmiths practice art, technique at Valley ‘hammering’

PALMER — A cello in the hands of Yo-Yo Ma becomes a vehicle for art that can transcend the instrument’s craftsmanship and the performer’s technical skill. A hammer in the hands of Brian Brazeal can have the same effect on iron and steel.

While not a musician, Brazeal wields his five-pound rounding hammer with a finesse befitting the world-class cellist, evoking art from the most basic of elements — fire and metal.

“I’ve liked blacksmithing from the first day I did it a little over 30 years ago,” the Mississippi blacksmith said. “You basically take a piece of hot metal, hit it with a hammer and make something. If you ever hit a piece of metal, you’ll get what I’m talking about.”

He’s spending the weekend talking about blacksmithing and techniques he’s learned over decades practicing his art. Brazeal is teaching 11 people blacksmithing techniques. It’s part of a “hammering”— a gathering of blacksmiths — held at the home of Palmer metal artist Pat Garley as a function of the Association of Alaskan Blacksmiths.

“People consider me an artist,” Brazeal said Saturday during a break in the class. “I consider myself a technician. But my art does come from the technique, like that horse I made. It’s all about the technique, like it is with a painter where it’s all about brush strokes.”

That horse is the project for the class, heating iron and using a hammer and anvil to sculpt a one-piece horse head. Brazeal did it in one firing of his iron rod.

While blacksmithing goes back to some of the most basic times in human history, the world is still living in an iron age, said Jerry “Frosty” Frost, a Mat-Su resident and Association of Alaskan Blacksmiths president.

“Before, we started out throwing rocks and hitting each other with sticks,” he said. “Then we got smart enough to sharpen the stick. You take the most primitive tools besides our thumbs and our brains — fire and something to bash with. Then you use them to make steel and iron do what you want, and that’s deeply satisfying.”

Like a musician or painter, Frost said it’s not difficult to tell where the skill of blacksmithing crosses the line to becoming art.

“My definition of art is ‘transcendent craft,’” he said. “That’s where your skill set gets to the point where you are getting effects that are more than the sum of your skills. When I’m doing it, I will be so into the metal itself that when I hit it, I’m going through that transformation myself.”

Historically, the art “is what got you out of the cave, man,” Brazeal added. “Western civilization learned to do this with iron and it really enabled people to stay in one place instead of just being hunters and gatherers. They could farm, make war, enslave their neighbors, all that stuff. Sticks and stones will break your bones, but iron will run right over you.”

That’s what inspires Garley, a Valley artist who works with different metal mediums, including blacksmithing and casting.

“What I like about it is it’s basic, it’s elemental,” Garley said. “We like to play with fire. All those things your mom told you not to do, we get to do because you’re making something.”

Although many attending the class had some level of experience, there were a couple of beginners who came to learn the basics.

J.P. Coulomb lives in Wasilla and has spent considerable time working with metal in some fashion. Learning Brazeal’s techniques will allow him to work with the medium in a whole different way, he said.

“I’ve always worked with metals before, but never hands-on with blacksmithing techniques,” he said. “I’m a diesel mechanic by trade. I think this is pretty neat. You can treat metal however you want to once you get it hot.”

As his students worked around the yard on their projects, Brazeal said he could tell where each was at by listening to the sounds of their hammers hitting the metal. A high-pitched tinny sound means it’s cooled off too much and needs to be put back into a hot kiln, he said.

As focused as most were, when lunchtime approached, Frost seemed to have something else on his mind. When a large rooster strutted across the driveway, he quipped, “You know what we used to call that? Lunch delivery.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.