Iron Alchemy

I like the heat.

Not the mosquito-ridden heat of a humid Minnesota summer. Not the dead dry heat of the Mojave. Not the figurative heat of scholastic demands. Not the adrenalin-inducing heat of walking the beams a hundred feet above the ground.

I know heat.

I like the heat of the forge. The heat of iron lying on the anvil awaiting the hammer's kiss. The heat of a welding torch in gloved hands running a smooth bead down an undetectable join. I like the heat that makes sweat run down my back and under my arms. The heat that mosquitoes avoid.

I like the heat.

My great-great-great grandfather, his father, and generations before were blacksmiths. He had a smithy on Marquette Avenue in Minneapolis before he moved out to Stillwater. I wish he'd kept that property and I'd inherited it. That's where they built the Federal Reserve Bank a hundred years later. Today, as impressive as the building is, it's just offices. The Feds gave it up when they realized how expensive it was going to be to do asbestos abatement and correct the construction flaws. They didn't tear it down, though.

Great-great grandpa didn't like the cold or the mosquitoes, so he moved our family to the California desert where, two generations later, my Dad worked for an ornamental iron company. In sales. Dad likes air conditioning. I got to hang out around the plant when I was younger and spent my summers during high school working there.

That's where I learned to love the heat.

The first job I was assigned at sixteen was on the dock. Young. Healthy. Strong. Lift iron. Flatbed trucks delivered everything from sheet and plate metal to pipes and rods to bars. We call it iron, but in reality, the company deals with just about anything metal. We unload it and transport it into the warehouse. We stack it. We unstack it and transport it to the shop floor. We start over. Most of the heavy work is done with forklifts, but sixteen-year-olds aren't allowed to operate a forklift. We lift pieces, secure ropes, operate block and tackle, and do anything where actual manual labor is involved.

Iron transported on a flatbed truck through the desert in summer gets hot. My first scar—the one across my right triceps—was acquired when I leaned against an iron bar on the truck. Hot enough to blister, right through my shirt. I learned, though. I learned to love the hot metal. I breathed in the smells of the shop and could tell the difference between grades of iron and sheet metal by scent. I could tell which welder was being used by the smell of heat.

My senior year in high school, I started career development. I went to two high school classes in the morning, then went to my apprenticeship. It might sound medieval, but I had to sign an indenture agreement with the Joint Apprenticeship Committee of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental, and Reinforcing Iron Workers.

Five years later I was a journeyman iron worker and I loved the heat.

It's like some kind of karma, then, that I moved back to my ancestor's old stomping ground to go to an art school in Minneapolis.

"Grant, we need that stair railing by end of day. The contractor will be here at five o'clock sharp to pick it up."

"It's finished, Mr. Olson," I answered. It was three o'clock and I'd just stopped to have a Coke before I started on the next job on the list.

"It's what?" my boss yelled. I'd only been working at St. Paul Art Iron for ten days. I didn't think there'd been any problems that would cause him to blow up with me. Even as a journeyman, there's a thirty-day probation period before a worker is protected under the union contract. "Where is it? I haven't inspected your work."

"It's on my bench, sir."

Olson walked over to the bench and began minutely examining every weld in the twisted iron. He grabbed the blueprint and calipers and started measuring distances, angles, and variance. He gripped one of the uprights and tried to shake my weld loose. I think he was looking for any excuse to write me up. It's part of probation.

I was working so I wouldn't have more than a couple million in college loans to pay back. It's stupidly expensive and I intentionally ignored how much debt I was really piling up. It was easy to transfer my credentials from Local 741 in California. That gave me a pretty good hourly wage and benefits. I figured one day I'd cash in my pension to pay my college debt.

Olson approved my work and that's how I spent the next four years. I worked second shift and attended Art College during the day. I made wrought iron fences, railings, gates, and decorations. I did window glazing. I did plasma cutting. If it could be done on a bench with a welding torch, plasma cutter, or anvil, it was my job.

My pleasure was firing up the forge and making art.

I managed to get a studio apartment in what had once been a run-down drug-infested ghetto that was 'restored' to its former glory in the '70s. Forty years later it was a not quite as run-down but almost as drug-infested a ghetto as it had been before the big rescue. The studio I got was in a building that had started out as a residence hotel in the '30s and had some great Art Deco ironwork that had survived deterioration and renovation alike.

My apartment was on the corner and looked out over a little park. You didn't want to walk through it at night. I was pretty content there because I stayed in that apartment for six years. That's when this story really starts. I was doing my studio preparation for my MFA. There aren't very many MFA candidates in sculpture. Well, there aren't that many MFA candidates at all. It's pretty rigorous qualifying and they only take people who already have a BFA. If you made the mistake in your undergrad work in getting a BA, you were considered an academic and not a serious artist. At the same time there were various teaching assistantships available for just about every MFA candidate in the school. But we were there to get started on our careers as 'professional' artists.

What is that, anyway? I can tell you right away that the terms professional and amateur don't have anything to do with the quality of the work produced. Most places, it just means you get paid for creating art instead of for teaching it.

In four years of undergraduate study, I'd managed to acquire some equipment for my own studio. I knew for a fact that I wasn't going to have a college studio to work in for the rest of my life because I was not interested in teaching. Eventually, I was going to get my own studio. I used my job at Art Iron to get discounted materials, but what I really wanted was to have my own ironworks studio. I had already acquired a welding outfit that the company was retiring. There was nothing particularly wrong with the equipment that a little refurbishing wouldn't cure. It simply wasn't made for the volume of work they were getting. I was the beneficiary.

The real problem was a forge. I had visions of myself working under a spreading chestnut tree. In reality, it would probably be a garage I rented, assuming I could find someone who didn't mind the smell of an iron forge in their back yard. There were lots of portable forges available, but one look would tell you this wasn't for a serious smith. They rose on spindly legs to a pot that would be hard to keep lit, even with the electric fans that most came with. I'd still need a pretty significant stand to anchor an anvil to unless I wanted to work on my knees. No.

I sat in the line of cars and trucks waiting to enter the grounds at Shakopee. Crews were working on the more permanent structures that would house vendors of everything from roast turkey legs to clothing to magic amulets. I could hear the pounding of a construction crew putting up one of the many stages as I checked in and a guy in a leather vest and blue jeans with a sword at his belt walked ahead of me to the spot where I would set up my smithy.

Six weeks of fun, playing the part of the village blacksmith at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. They were getting everything set up a week before the festival opened. In spite of the fact there were power tools and a couple big gas generators cranking out megawatts, most of the people had already donned some portion of their costumes. Hats, leather aprons, and swords were common. I followed my guide to my spot and backed the trailer into position.

I'd spent every spare minute of the past three months building this. It started with a decent trailer frame that I picked up through Auto Trader. Some guy intended to build his own travel trailer and had only gotten as far as stripping the old trailer off the frame before his wife put up an ultimatum. For some reason he chose to keep her instead of his pet project. It was a twelve-foot frame with dual axles and decent suspension. Other than that, nothing but the hitch. As soon as I had it in position, I unhitched and took the truck to the campsite.

The cast campground was not as organized as the festival grounds. Someone had whitewashed crooked lanes around the grounds and marked them with yellow flags. You couldn't park there. Anywhere else was open with no designated parking or camping spots. There were a few trailers and a few campers, but mostly there were cars and trucks parked as close to the lane as they could get with a tent set up behind. Really! These people had no idea how hard the ground was going to get. For safety, there were power poles with lights scattered through the grounds. I backed up to one and checked the power box. There were all-weather outlets on the pole. Mostly, people would use them to recharge their phones. I wasn't sure what good that would do as there were only half a dozen spots on the entire festival grounds where there was a half-way decent cell signal. I plugged in my camper. That was all there was to setting up my campsite.

Setting up my blacksmith shop was harder and took until noon the next day. When packed on the trailer, the whole thing was no higher than the back of the pickup. The truck weighs about 4,500 pounds. The loaded trailer was close to 6,000. Being a blacksmith is not only hot, it's heavy. The weight included fold-up sides and back, a roof with extended awning, a built-in forge, the front table with display stock and the anvil. It included the bellows, the coal, and the unformed iron and sheet metal. Off the back of the shop, I had my acetylene welding bench. I'd keep that closed up during show hours, but if I needed more stock of artwork, I would have to work late nights.

Finally, I'd cut a spreading chestnut tree, complete with individually cut and hammered leaves and bark that wrapped around the left end of the display. I'd created a leaf form stamp and hammered the leaf veins and texture right into the sheet metal.

Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
Wigh large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arm
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns what'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.

Good old Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem was first published in 1840 and I memorized it in the shop when I first learned to use the forge and anvil.

Over the heat of the forge hung a black Dutch oven full of water. It probably wasn't an authentic use of a forge, but I could boil water and keep it going for the twenty minutes that it took me to properly heat the iron. Why did I need boiling water? For chestnuts. I bought a bushel basket of the nuts and each morning I would cut an 'X' in the top of a few dozen. I'd boil a bunch of them two or three times a day and then scoop them out of the water to dry in the little oven under the forge. As my demos would conclude, I would open the oven drawer and bring out fresh, hot, roasted chestnuts for the crowd to sample. Even if people are not interested in a demonstration, they'll still stick around to sample a fresh-roasted chestnut.

"Oh, my god! What is that horrid stench? Is this going to be here for the entire festival?" a young woman asked. I turned to look at her. The festival opened tomorrow and everyone was practicing their spiels and crafts as the other craftspeople and actors wandered around getting a feel for what would be happening. Once the festival started, I wouldn't really be able to leave my station for more than bathroom breaks and food during the long days. I'd need to be firing up the forge by eight in the morning, and I wouldn't leave it until it was cool, around twelve hours later.

The woman who was standing in front of my shop was attractive, I suppose. She wasn't nearly as exposed as some of the characters were. She wore an apron and a long skirt. Her blouse was actually buttoned up. The clothes that most of the wenches who wandered around the grounds wore were designed to make the most of their assets. I would hardly call the amount of cleavage that was on display an authentic representation of the Renaissance. Most women who dressed like that would be spending their lives on their backs in the sixteenth century. This one, though, looked respectable. She'd already adopted her English accent. That seemed to be a necessity for most characters.

"Are you inquiring about the forge?" I said.

"It stinks!"

"Oh. I hardly notice except first thing in the morning. It's coal in the forge and hot iron on the anvil. Would you like to watch?" I asked. There was no sense rising to the bait of having a smelly exhibit. I was sure there would be others at the festival who would also think it was smelly.

"No. I want you to move. I'm downwind." She pointed at a colorful tent filled with pottery about twenty feet away. It hadn't been there yesterday when I was out helping other vendors get set up.

"What are you doing clear out here?" I asked. "I thought they were making the smithy the last spot on the street." It wasn't a bad spot as there was a stage across from us that would attract people down this alley, but I was pretty sure they put me out here because of the forge and the clanging of my hammer. I'd already been told that I'd have to not hammer during the twenty-minute show times.

"This is where they put me. It was the only spot left," she complained. "This is going to be such a waste."

"I'm Grant Smith," I said, holding out my hand to shake. She looked it over before she accepted the handshake.

"Celia Potter," she said. "Your hands are soft." She pulled back her hand in surprise.

"I don't work without gloves," I said. "I want to work with iron, not become iron. And your hands are soft, as well."

"Clay is damp. It's like playing in mud all day. As long as I keep moisturizing, they don't get dried out." She sighed. "I guess I'm stuck with it. I suppose you'll be noisy, too."

"Not during the show times. That's when I'll be taking my breaks. You can probably continue since pottery is a quiet profession," I ventured.

"It is if I'm throwing pots," she laughed. "It can get noisy, though, if I actually throw them." She was practicing her lines. All of us had humorous little bits that we added in our patter to keep the audience entertained.

"Well, Celia Potter, let me give you a little gift for your lovely soft hands." I reached for my tongs and grabbed a horseshoe nail. It only took a few seconds in the forge for the nail to glow. I set it on the point of my anvil and hammered it gently into shape. When I was satisfied, I dipped it into the water bucket beside the anvil and it hissed. "What size ring do you wear?" I asked.

"A seven," she responded automatically. Men usually have no idea what size their rings are. I've never met a woman who didn't know exactly. I pulled out my sizing rod and slid the horseshoe ring over it. I adjusted the collapsible size until it fit and asked for her hand. She held it out and I slipped the ring on her finger.

"I think this means we're married," I said. "My camper is by the third light pole. You can move in tonight."

"In your dreams!" she laughed. She looked at the ring. "How many other wenches do you plan to marry this week?"

"As many as possible."

I did a few more demonstrations that morning and handed out some more horseshoe nail rings. One particularly buxom girl gave me a kiss that I know left a lipstick smear on my cheek. I gave her a ring.

"Now you can tell people you got nailed by the village blacksmith," I whispered to her. She giggled and ran off to kiss another guy and leave lipstick on his cheek. Such is the life of the Kissing Wench.

I stopped to look over a display of knives and swords. I could hammer out a blade, but they were strictly utilitarian. I wasn't refining steel and didn't much like to work with the harder metal. I always liked to look at really good ones, though. A lot of cleavage attached to a very nice-looking girl was pushed over the top of the display case as she leaned in toward me.

"If you see anything you want to touch, just point at it and I'll whip it out for you," she said saucily. Looking down her front, I was pretty sure she had an innie navel. I pointed to her left breast.

"This one seems to have a nice hard point on it," I said. "Of course, I'd want to compare it to the other to make sure I had the best at the Faire." She giggled.

"You're a quick one. How long is your sword?"

"Whatever it lacks in length, it makes up in girth," I said. "I need a nice tight sheath for it." I finally looked up from her breasts and into her eyes. I just held her eyes for a second. She'd need practice at this game if she was going to blush every time a customer fed lines back to her.

"I might have a sheath that would fit," she breathed at last. "Do you have a tent?"

"One with a single pole, but I sleep in a camper," I answered.

"A bed?"

"Of course."

"I'll fix dinner at my place if we can ... sleep at yours."

"Time and place?"

"Eight o'clock. My tent has the flag of Princess Aurora flying in front of it."

"Which one is she?"

"The blonde one, of course."

"Aren't they all blonde?" What did I know about Disney princesses?

"You'll get toad stew for dinner and no sheath if you continue that. There hasn't been a blonde princess since Sleeping Beauty."

"Sleeping Beauty? Now I know who you are talking about. I hope I get to watch her sleep tonight."

I did. Aurora, who never would tell me her real name, fixed a nice meal over her gas stove and grill—chicken breast, rice, salad. Simple, but good. When we'd cleaned up and went to the camper, she was a lively participant, but made it clear that she was only interested in oral satisfaction. As soon as she felt we'd pleasured each other enough, she pulled underwear and a t-shirt on so there wouldn't be any accidents during the night.

Still, it was nice to sleep cuddled up behind a soft and pleasant girl. Just because she wore a t-shirt to bed didn't mean my hand couldn't be under it. And panties were only a defense against my cock, not my fingers. In the morning, she stroked me off as I fingered her, and she gave me our first kiss before she pulled her shorts on and ran to her tent. Turned out it was our last kiss, too.

Opening day was busy and crowded. I had the forge going all day and in addition to horseshoe nail rings that I sold for $5.00, I also had punches that I could use to strike initials and short names into a horseshoe or a blank disk. The horseshoes and blank disks were also $5.00 plus fifty cents per strike.

I also had bronze disks, and even though the raw material was about eighty-five cents a square inch, I could charge $10.00 for a custom stamped one-inch coin. It was a cold stamp process and I had a special clamp to hold the coin to the anvil. On the bottom was my Iron Alchemy logo with no words. It's pretty cool—just a circle with an arrow pointing up to the right. I had a dozen different stamps in addition to the fancy script letters that were always popular. I placed the blank apparatus on the anvil and used a five pound hammer to make the strike. People loved to watch it and then take their freshly minted coin from me.

But by far and away, the most popular thing was to get nailed by the village blacksmith.

By the end of the day, I was exhausted and hoarse. And I'd burned an entire tray of chestnuts. Six weeks of this was going to be more than my voice could take. And, of course, while I was hammering a ring or horseshoe, or stamping a disk, I wasn't selling other merchandise. I sold a lot of little crap during the day, but no artwork. Selling any one of my metal sculptures would have given me more money than the entire take on trinkets. When I got back to my truck that night, I ate a cold sandwich with some chips and drank a beer. Then I fell into bed.

I debated pulling out Sunday night like a lot of people were, but decided that I'd rather stay in the camper another night than fight the traffic. I was looking forward to getting back to my apartment and a hot shower in the morning, though. I looked in my little refrigerator and pulled out the last steak and some kind of droopy asparagus. I lit my grill and threw it all on at once.

"A real gourmet, I see," Celia said as she came up to me.

"Hey, Celia. Are you staying the night?" I asked.

"I'm staying the week. I have too much stock in there to walk away and assume security will just take care of everything. Besides, I need to fire some more mugs," she said.

"You've got a kiln in there? I didn't see it when I came by."

"It's behind the shop. I didn't want a propane kiln destroying the illusion of the Renaissance."

"It's less of a Renaissance Festival these days than a Steampunk and Pirates Fest," I laughed. "Do you have anything you want to toss on the grill while it's hot?"

"I was coming to ask you that. Do you mind?"

"Not at all."

We managed a fairly pleasant evening. Celia brought a bottle of wine as well as her grillables.

"I figure that when you are in town this week, you can replenish my wine stock if I share it with you," she said.

"I could just drink beer," I answered.

"Oh, the brawny lad needs his ale. What a waste of good wine!"

"If you are attempting to seduce me, kind words are as good as fine wine," I said.

"Seduce? You? Hah! Married on Thursday morning and betrayed by a strumpet Thursday night. Now the straying husband wants me to seduce him! I think not." She glared at me. I was frozen. What?

"Uh ... Celia. It was ... I mean ... I didn't..."

"Didn't enjoy your time with Aurora One-Night?" she asked coyly.

"I won't deny that I enjoyed a night with Princess Aurora," I said, "but that doesn't mean we're lovers."

"Very well, then. I accept," she said.

"You ... Accept what?"

"Your offer of more wine, thank you. I never could hold a grudge."

"You are more of a tease than Aurora One-Night and the Kissing Wench combined," I sighed, pouring more wine.

"So why are you leaving our little piece of paradise?" she asked.

"Well, my gear all has chains and padlocks," I said. "I need to replenish some supplies, dump my tanks, and find an assistant."

"What tanks?"

"Waste water."

"Eww, gross. And why an assistant?" she asked.

"I discovered that it is difficult to keep the demonstration going while still trying to sell goods. There's just too much to keep track of," I admitted.

"That's why I don't really make anything when I'm sitting at the wheel. Everything I throw is immediately cut and reshaped. If someone wants something, I just stop what I'm doing and conduct the transaction."

"Very smart of you. I guess I just had too high an expectation of what I could do while I was here. I actually thought I'd do some serious smithing instead of just trinkets during demos," I said.

"It probably won't be as busy next weekend."

"Labor Day. Four days instead of three and bigger crowds."

"Oh. I forget American holidays."

"You're not American?" I asked. "I wondered how you got such a consistent accent."

"I didn't have to learn it. I was born with it." We sat in lawn chairs and sipped our wine.

"I've an idea. How much did you plan to pay your shill?"

"Hmm. Cast members work for tips. But she won't really be able to get tips because she'll be selling. I think $75–$100 a day would be about right. After all, it is fun. And I'd provide food," I said.

"And a bed?" she giggled.

"Oh shit! I'll have to get a tent," I said. I couldn't really expect someone to come out to the grounds in the morning and leave at night. The traffic out was terrible.

"What? She doesn't get treated as well as the princess?" I blushed. Celia laughed. "I have an idea. My friend Leslie Cravens was here today, moaning about how she'd gotten back too late this summer to audition for a cast role. Hire her and she can sleep with me."

"I'm not sure I like the sound of my wife sleeping with another woman," I said.

"It's most men's fantasy," she teased. "Just imagine what might be going on in our tent late at night."

"Most men would rather be present."

"Master Smith! A ring is the only way you will nail either of us."

Leslie Cravens was everything I could have wanted except a bedmate. She was a cute blonde grad student in theater at the University. Great at improv, she also had a clear and ringing voice that carried without being harsh or shouted. She quickly adapted some of my lines and interacted well with me during the demos. When I returned to the park on Wednesday, she came with me and immediately tossed her bag in Celia's tent. I arranged credentials for her and we spent that afternoon and all day Thursday rehearsing.

In addition to adapting my lines, she added a number of her own as Friday progressed, often pointing out the fine art I was displaying. People were showing much more interest in it than they had the previous weekend. In the evening, I was the designated cook. Though Celia contributed to the food more than I thought necessary, I grilled something every night. And we shared a bottle of wine and a lot of flirtation each evening before Celia and Leslie retired to their tent.

"You know, if you were making swords and armor instead of metal birds, you'd sell a lot more of the expensive items," Leslie said.

"Unfortunately, they don't teach sword-making and armory to union apprentices," I said. "I don't want to work with steel for swords. It is a long and arduous process."

"Arduous! Listen to that vocabulary, Leslie," Celia exclaimed. "Master Smith is educated with more than his hammer and tongs. Hammer and tongue, perhaps!"

"Oh, he does know how to heat things up," Leslie joined in. "Let us not forget that."

"People rave about his nuts," Celia said.

"All right!" I said. "I shall have to praise your beauty with poetry if you keep this up."

"Oh, please do!" Celia said. I turned to her.

Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers.
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the wayside,
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses!
Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows.
When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide
Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah! Fair in sooth was the maiden.

"Oh, my. Celia, you didn't warn me," Leslie said, faking a swoon. Celia held my eyes and I realized she really did have remarkably dark, almost black, eyes.

"Good evening, Master Smith," Celia finally sighed as she stood. "Thank you for your recitation. We really need to get our rest now."

"And good evening to you, Mistress Potter. And you, Maid Leslie. Until the morrow." I watched the sway of their hips as they walked away, thinking I would like to join them.

Hmm. Armor.

There are many industrial uses for sheet metal. Think about your automobile. A big sheet of metal is laid over a form and a high pressure mate is stamped down on top of it. Voilà! A car door. A hood. A grille. A bumper. We used formed sheet metal—usually aluminum—to make window frames for buildings.

But a lot of art is made from sheet metal, as well. Most of it is flat or nearly flat art. Material is embossed, chased, bent. The processes are cold. I like the heat. I like the hammer. I started creating deeply three-dimensional art from sheet metal by using the forge and hammer. That's how I arrived at making birds. I could heat the sheet metal—usually 14 gauge mild steel, just over a sixteenth of an inch thick—and hammer it into the shape I wanted on an anvil. It takes a lot of twisting and turning with the tongs while I hammer on it. Inside curves are easier than outside curves. With the right hammers and enough patience, I could create a bird's body, wings, legs, and head. I had a lot of hammers and a lot of patience. Once the body was created, I stamped out feathers and welded them to the body.