smithy.

    more exciting 'north art crawl' tales: 

   daniel kretchmar is a blacksmith from east bethel minnesota. this is his story and mine, on a day not too long ago when I visited his authentic blacksmith shop.

   his place is situated in a nice wooded area and lots of interesting things seemed to be everywhere on his land and in his barn where daniel's blacksmith shop is located. the shop was a very cool space with millions of things to look at, and to just try and guess their purpose. 

   while I was there daniel demonstrated elements of his craft and showed us some of his creations. daniel, his apprentice and his children were all very friendly and seemed really glad to have lots of visitors. well...  I was glad to be one of them.

mind your beard! 

watch your fingers!

   amongst the many things that daniel makes are these beautiful knives, wow. he described the laborious process he used to create it. he says he heats it, 'pulls' it out, folds it back over on itself, pounds it flat and repeats, over and over, layer upon layer. he turns out a pretty cool piece, I must say. good work daniel.

careful, sharp!

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   I could have wandered around in daniel's shop forever, there's so much interesting 'stuff' to look at. 

but all good things must come to an end...  so, I hope that I shall be able to return sometime, perhaps next year, in the mean time:

'may your fire burn bright and

your fingers stay attached and may the birds that fly outside your window have beautiful wives and good relationships and may there always be some grog in you cupboard and may your wife always smell good and smile a lot'

sven.

irontree