And dee rain...It come to penland...

No sooner than I go out to WalMart..(I know...I feel really skanky about shopping there...it's like this fortress on a hill, no less...but there really isn't anywhere else near by....)..and buy my flip flops...then the rain pays a visit...and I revert to Seattle-Mode...(here we are in the iron shop loading bay)...




We have had alot of cool people pass thru this week...We had a guess teacher in iron....Jay Kidwell (above)...who is the coolest guy...he wore leather pants all week, because after he got here...he tried to pull on a pair of his jeans only to realize they were his wife's...(yeah, whatever Jay...) He came and did some demos in forge welding...where you are basically getting metals to fuse together by getting them really hot and hammering them together...We have been working on damascus...where you layer different metals together, and fold them over and over again, until you get patterns in yer metal...(photos later)

It's a strange coincedence, because the visiting book makling guy..Stephen Pittlekow...does something simular with paper....






Marbling paper was something I thought you found inside old classic books and it all looked the same...well this man, who was as charming as an old snakeoil salesman, showed us some amazing work, and opened my eyes...He will be in nyc this fall, and I may take a class... What a badass...

So, back to the studio, where we apparently, are gonna get a talking to this morning for making the studio coordinator's life hell....Sorry Nate in advance...But, before I go....here's a lil' picture of clinker....it is the crap that sits under yer forge coal fire and makes life a pain...(It's the impurities, dirt, silica, that all setting at the bottom, and you have to dig it out with a poker to keep yer fire clean...kinda like picking yer nose....and I find it very satisfying to dig one of these lil' bastards out...(Its the big chunk on top...)...