Hooks, Error Correction, Exploration

The hooks I worked to "fix", all lined up. I am very impressed by the variety of styles!

(Oops. This didn't get posted last year!)

I was back down at the John C Campbell Folk School last week for Blacksmith Work Week (check out this amazing walk-through video taken during work week!). During this week, we work on shop maintenance, tool repair, and we make things for the school. I arrive, hungry to fire up the forge and put my hammer to work. The resident artist of blacksmithing, Paul Garrett, hands me a giant can of hooks, and explains that over the years, he's collected nearly four cans of abandoned hooks from the window sills and the scrap bin. The hooks all need a little bit of work to be usable; some just need holes drilled. Some are half-finished.  Others need some re-shaping. 

I set to work. Hooks tend to be some of the first projects that folks do when they first learn to smith--and they are great first projects because there's an incredible opportunity for variety.  (If you have any question about the staggering variety of hooks you can make, check out the 366 Hooks project done by Matt Jenkins of Cloverdale Forge in Winnipeg, Canada.) I've been making hooks since I started blacksmithing so I was pretty confident that I could knock this task out easily. 

And WOW, did I learn a LOT. 

I make a point to NOT work on my student's work. In my post "Mistakes were Made" I wrote: "Mistakes and their fixes are THE MOST IMPORTANT PART of learning. I work extra special hard to create a safe space for students to learn and explore.  I'm here to help, to answer questions, to provide options, encouragement, and moral support, but students get to make --and fix-- their own mistakes.  And that means that they are empowered to do their own troubleshooting, which makes them a better smith down the road."

What kinda blew my mind about these hooks is that they were REALLY GOOD, but usually somewhere along the line, the student did something that made continuing to work on the hook especially challenging. In one case, they cut the metal short enough that it was challenging to hold the hook. In another case, the student made the hook out of square stock, but in bending the cup of the hook, the metal naturally bent on the diamond, so the hook appeared crooked. And it occurred to me that this is a prime example of beginners working harder than more experienced smiths. No experienced smith would set themselves up for these challenges. 

And yet--this exploration into how the metal moves, what is easy to fix and what is more challenging--is absolutely critical to developing the experience necessary to be a lazy blacksmith. To be an efficient blacksmith. To understand the metal. To really understand how deep this craft is. 

As a teacher, I guide students around a lot of these challenges, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes consciously. (In fairness, we have a finite amount of time together and I do try to help folks be successful at their projects in the time we have!) It's a good reminder of how important it is to let folks explore. 

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