Embracing the power of forged metals at Hereford College of Arts new master programme

For anyone with even the smallest acquaintance with artist blacksmithing, Hereford has become the major hub for the craft in the UK. Since 2003, the BA in Artist Blacksmithing at Hereford College of Arts (HCA) has enabled the training and nurturing of a community that extends internationally. Behind this is the humble yet self-assured figure of Delyth Done MBE, CWCB whose own background in ceramics has enabled her to bring outsider energy to the craft while respecting its core as an educating, practitioner and curating.  

This September, HCA will welcome its first cohort of students to its new MA in Forged Metal Arts, which Delyth has developed together with textile artist and researcher Lisa Porch. For Lisa and Delyth, the choice of the term Forged Metal is a departure from blacksmithing that signals how the master’s degree can support emerging practices and practitioners. Despite the craft’s presence among many peoples and cultures in the world – images of what blacksmithing is, and who does it, can be somewhat limited in the public perception. The name Forged Metal Arts, they hope, can open doors to new forms of expression and build on the growing interest and diversity of those who are exploring the creative possibilities of iron and steel. 

When I meet Delyth and Lisa to learn about their vision for the MA, they are abuzz with ideas about the possibilities for combining practical and theoretical and perspectives that are authentic to the craft and may enable their students to break new ground in the field. Having learned from how other craft fields have been able to expand and develop through developing a critical self-consciousness that is in dialogue with other areas of culture – the Forged Metal Arts MA will surely give a boost to a field that is becoming aware of new opportunities for reaching bigger audiences.  

 The resurgence of interest in material making across all arts disciplines over the last fifteen years or so means that there is fertile ground for the MA in Forged Metal Arts to further bring the making process into dialogue with thinking that can challenge the creative imagination with craft. One such area explored in a recent Masterclass for undergraduate students lead by Australia blacksmith Will Maguire is New Materialism; a way of thinking that focuses on how matter and things around us have power and influence, and how they are all connected, rather than just being shaped by humans. In a craft setting, this relates to confronting forms of separation in how we make and think: it challenges notions that the maker is wholly separate from, and must achieve mastery over, the material. Makers must find a way to be in dialogue with material and its physical, logical, poetic and mythic powers.  

Previous golden ages of artisanal smithing in the rococo and art nouvaeu styles directed skill towards the mimicry of organic forms and took the world of plants and animals as a cue to develop new techniques. The practice of mimicry drove innovation and virtuosic skill in the guilds to new heights and led to the development of a vast array of techniques and knowledge of affordances. In the twentieth century, modernist sculpture focused on communicating ‘truthful’ qualities of metal through various surface treatments. Building on our knowledge of these previous eras, a New Materialist approach makes the craft contemporary through seeking new ways of “listening” to the metals in the forge. What might it mean to see iron and steel not as passive objects to be manipulated to mimic other forms, but as partners in co-creation and cognition? What can we learn with iron and steel that we cannot learn with other materials? 

First, we may be more alert to mankind’s relationship to metal in all its states of being. Not every impression of metal we come across in our daily lives may seem significant, but our encounters leave imprints on our consciousness. We might see metals embedded in rock, in steel and glass skyscrapers, grave markers, ornamental railings and gates or functional stainless-steel cookware. We sometimes meet iron and steel in various states of interaction with its surroundings – from green copper roofs, to corroding locks, or bicycles rusting in salt sea air. When metal leaves the forge it starts to behave according to its own rules unless great care is taken – a key lesson that can be integrated into the creative process. Furthermore, in our high-speed society that is contingent upon war for its material prosperity, we may also encounter carcasses of cars crashed or set alight, images depicting the remains from drone attacks where metals are contorted, exploded, and charred: the evidence that remains when organic matter has burned away. It can reflect humanity’s wrongs in ways that are unsettling. 

Metals also alert us to their presence through their sonorous nature - the sounds of the forge, church bells, the clink of cutlery and the whirr of air conditioners indicate the presence of the metallic in soundscapes from the pastoral to the modern city. Again, we are invited to listen and to respond: to consider how we might shape and tune material that is as important a part of our past as in modern life.  

I regularly meet artists working in metal who are concerned about the environmental costs of blacksmithing – doubts are raised about the use of a material produced from mining with high energy inputs used in production of raw material and in its manipulation in the workshop. While innovations like electric and gas forges are drastically reducing energy consumption (and enabling graduates to cheaply set up forges in garages and outbuildings), there is rightly a concern in the community about its impact. While not washing these issues aside, we must also recognise important artistic qualities of artisanal forging in an ecological and political crisis. The ability to listen to and interact with material is a skill that extends far beyond the forge and enables us to humbly reflect upon our relation to a world shaped by consumerism – the acquisition of such skills bring a key driver in the resurgence of contemporary craft. While these may be latent potentialities in all crafts, the plasticity and durability of iron and steel sit in productive tension alongside the sheer challenge of manipulation, and the near inevitability of their corrosion and collapse in deep time. Whatever one believes about the origins of metals on our planet – their mystery should only deepen as skills in the forge develop in the dance of sensitivity and force. Metal is very good at making us feel small. 

Hereford's new MA in Forged Metal Arts is therefore an important addition to craft education and will enable the craft to meet its potential as an artistic medium. As the first education of its kind at postgraduate level in the UK, it will also contribute to an international network of other prestigious centres such as EKA in Estonia and HDK-Valand Campus Steneby in Sweden. To listen, and to bear testimony to a material presence requires skills that are rare, yet part of a tactile world that many are seeking to recover. The MA in Forged Metal Arts will surely play a key role in the ongoing re-enchantment of artist blacksmithing.