Forging Samurai Swords

One of the crafts I would like to learn more about in the future is blacksmithing. It’s great to work with tools you’ve made yourself. Other than wood metals can be recycled over and over again. It’s perfectly possible that your old bicycle contains metal molecules that once were part of the dagger that Brutus used to stab Julius Caesar…

At the highest peak of metallurgy we find the Japanese technology to make the “Katana” or samurai sword. And although I am not fond of weapons, the technology involved in making these swords is stunning. The kind of identification these blacksmiths have with their work is hardly ever found here in the west.

I first saw this documentary during my study years in Belgium. What intrigued me was the involvement and care of the people with the work at hand. How the workshop became a temple of craftwork. Doing a good job, with simple tools, but pushing the material to its limits. Making artifacts of great quality, only for the sake of the object, becoming quality in itself.

An idea that really spoke to me, and encountered while working on instruments myself. Moments of great quality -or should I say clarity- when tools, objects and maker flow together, become one. Hand and mind, subject, object and time don’t excist anymore and it feels like the work does itself. Some makers will know what I mean…