I was fortunate enough to have a loving family. This makes a huge difference in what can be a highly stressful environment. When machinery breaks down and the pressure is on to get equipment back out into the field before rain ruins a crop, stress is very high on the farm. Yet at as a six year old boy I was never afraid to be around my Dad as he made repairs in the shop. His attitude made a difference. And so I did not see the farm shop as a place of anxiety, I saw it as place where things were restored and redeemed.
In my early teens Dad taught me to weld and I began to see the value of being able to do things yourself. Creativity was encouraged, especially when we could save time and get the equipment back in the field after repairing it ourselves. After college I returned to the farm to work with my family.
Later on in my twenties, falling in love with my wife changed my view of the world even further. Making things functional and using creativity to repair things was useful and practical, but now I had more desire to make things beautiful. Love changes your view of the world. Using the skills I had at the time, I started making furniture for our new home out of wood and steel. Then over the years I took more courses and studied more ways to make things beautiful with steel. This hobby turned into a business.
If you fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right, you will find a way to make things beautiful with whatever you have around you. To me this is core to making pieces of art. The medium and the methods are secondary to the choices of the soul. When I am in a bad mood, and I am focused on the negative, all of my work comes out wrong. However my best pieces of work were reflections of thinking about something good, even in the midst of trouble.
In my community live several people I greatly admire. They have been through horrible tragedy and pain. Yet somehow the beauty of their soul has not soured. Somehow amidst the trouble of life they have maintained a resilient spirit. Like driftwood beaten and hammered over the years they have become more beautiful, not less. These things inspire me.
If you would like to explore a new way of expressing creativity, I invite you to visit our family farm, near the village of Ste Rose du lac, north east of riding mountain national park, and come experience “Tempered”. Learn how to forge hot steel using your own hands. I would like to share some of my experience and stories with you. Hot steel is like clay. It can be shaped and formed into whatever idea you can imagine. The limiting factor is your mind. After three hours you will come away with a project that you have made, and that you will take home. For more information visit www.authentic-iron.com. The cost of this experience is $90 per person, taxes and materials.