Boje Doctoral Faculty storytelling seminar at Lille France
- Introduction to Boje blacksmithing study - YouTube tour of my shop
- some of my art work -- http://peaceaware.com/blacksmith
- Forgerones de Lille e.g.
website - Shawn Cunningham - Front Step Forge - Canada. He gave me permission to discuss his blacksmithing artwork with you, at this presentaiton in Lille. You see in the photo at left, just below, that he is making some abstract art. Yet, he also makes the art that customers want, that pays his shop bills. He definitely sees the interplay between the ancient alchemy of blacksmithing (fire, earth, water, wind, ether) and the use of modern industrial processes, such as the power hammer, the Tig and Mig and Arc welders. He wants to produce art that does not surrender alchemy to the modern processes. That is his strategy.
website for Frontstep Forge - Julian Voss-Andreae is well known worldwide for being a quantum physicist who became, as well, a metal artist, making quantum-metal-artwork. Julian's website http://www.julianvossandreae.com/ He gave me permission, after our interview, to discuss his work with you in Lille. Julian Voss-Andreae Qantum Man metal art sculpture Art Beat video segment. In this next images of Quantum Man, the figure is visible from one angle, then almost invisible, with so many open spaces showing that the human figure is mostly space, not very much substance, and mostly motion, not much stability at all.
YouTube video - making Pauling sculpture - protein The protien is a building block of Nature, and his sculpture a tribute to Lionel Pauling's contributions to quantum physics. In the next image of the Bucky Ball, is an artistic rendition of a physics experiment that Julian conducted, a double slit experiment, where Bucky Balls passed simulteneously throught the two slits.
Bucky Ball 
YouTube Quantum Man
- Tom Joyce, New Mexico blacksmith artist, his art work leans more to the old ways, but here and there, is a power hammer, a Tig welder - notice the orderly shop, the many hammers, tongs, ancient post-pvices, and the fire in the forge, the hammer at the ready on the anvil.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ3kL2q8irM
This is the Fibonacci Bowl, a tribute of sorts to something well known in physics.
- another video of Tom Joyce, Fibonacci Bowl, mild steel art
http://www.craftinamerica.org/artists_metal/story_335.php
- The Blacksmithing Study of Process (ontological storytelling inquiry) questions asked in the interviews:
- What is the directionality of the process?
- What is the datability of the process developments?
- What is the duration of various processes>
- What is the docclosability of the future processes revealed to you?
- What is the deployment of preciesses, in fore-caring, fore-structuring, fore-having, fore-conceiving, in-order-to, fore-the-sake-of?
- What is the destining of the processes unfolding in ways you can foretell?
- What is the dwellin, in-place in the world of blacksmit
- hing art processes?
- What is the de-severance (de-dstancing) of space-time-mattering
- What are the drafts, updraft, and downdraft, into tighter (down) orbits, or into more open outter orbits (up), and the turning points from one draft to another
- What is the dispersion of processes, too diverse, or consolidating them?
- What is the detaching from being drawn into they-ness, they-relations, they-self and finding a path of ownmost authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole-Self?
- Examples from the ongoing study of blacksmithing art processes
Results.
The directionality of blacksmithing processes are changing in the Quantum Age. Yet, the artisans, in particular, hold on to the skills and knowledge of the alchemy of fire, water, earth, and wind. Some embrace the modern technologies, the power-hammer for its labor-saving and its force. Some embrace the laser-cutters, but few have ventured into the processes of computer design, or machines that cut the metal into parts for later assemblage.
The datability of shifts or ventures into processes, differ of course for each metal artist. Yet, each has dateable events that were life-path changing. And what is noticeable is that the shifts are not set out in advance by a guild, by an association of artists. So Shawn made his own art that for him symbolized his arrival at journeyman skill and knowledge. And Julian did a self-portrait, a painting that was a similar datability.
In 1992 Shawn started blacksmithing, and in 1994 opened his shop and about 1996 created a piece that for him was journeyman quality. In the old days, the guild would have presented him a challenge, a piece to create, and judge if he had arrived as a journeyman. And there would be a chance to develop master-pieces, and be declared a master blacksmith.
Above is Julian's self-portrait. He did this in a way, like Shawn, to show to himself he had made a journeyman piece.
Merci Beaucoup!
For more on Boje's books and articles - see http://peaceaware.com/vita
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