SIBLING CLASSES

Learn the art of toolmaking and boost your skills and self-sufficiency as a blacksmith in a welcoming and inclusive environment! In this workshop participants will learn how to make many fundamental tools of the trade. We will cover everything from forging punches, chisels, tongs, and a hammer to heat treating, grinding, and handling. Leave with your own hand-forged tools, the skills to make more on your own, and a greater understanding and appreciation for tools in blacksmithing. Expect lots of striking with sledgehammers, long days in the shop, and silly dance breaks. Prior experience in blacksmithing is recommended; participants should have a basic understanding of how to heat metal in either a coal or gas forge and swing a hand hammer.

Anna Koplik (she/her) received a BFA in Jewelry from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. After graduating, she shifted her focus to blacksmithing and began traveling, working, and teaching at craft schools and as a journeyman architectural smith, going on adventures whenever possible. Her personal work focuses mainly on tool and utensil making, and combining functionality with a refined, delicate aesthetic. Koplik has worked at a variety of shops, including Atlas Forge, Caleb Kullman Studio, and Spirit Ironworks, as well as taught at various craft schools such as Penland, Touchstone, and John C. Campbell.

This workshop will explore both steel and bronze as sculptural materials through traditional and experimental forging techniques. Emphasis will be on developing skill and control while creating organic forms in metal. Participants will learn tapering, leaf forging, punching, riveting, and forge welding before moving into more advanced explorations of bronze smithing. The final days will focus on personal design and the creation of individually developed sculptural forms. All levels welcome.

Celeste Flores (she/her) is an artist blacksmith based in the San Francisco Bay Area. After receiving a BFA in Sculpture from the Academy of Art University, she spent over a decade training and teaching with Chris Niemer at The Crucible. Flores’s work explores the natural movement of metal through beautiful, functional, organic forms. She has created pieces for Disney, NBC Sports, and Francis Ford Coppola, and her work has appeared in Make Magazine, La Nacional (Argentina), and The Anvil’s Ring.

Learn to work with fire and weld your own small hollow-form steel objects using thin sheet steel and oxy-acetylene welding torches in this fun, introductory workshop. Using a basic pattern provided by the instructor–and then one of your own design–learn to cut, form, and weld steel. We will explore basic pattern-making, cutting, and forming sheet metal into organic forms, hammers and tooling, torch welding seams, and simple texturing, patinas, and finishing techniques. Exclusive for beginners.

Rhea Vedro (she/her) is a metalsmith exploring the intersection of materiality and healing through welded hollow-form steel sculpture. Vedro is a Lecturer and Artist in Residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her project portfolio includes Amulet, a sculpture commissioned for Boston’s City Hall Plaza, Boston Public Art Accelerator Program, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Artisans Asylum, North Bennet Street School, UW–Madison, New York City Parks Foundation, and creative community spaces throughout the Americas. Vedro received an MFA in Metals from SUNY New Paltz.

This workshop uses design ideation and craft techniques to develop each participant’s creative voice in metal furniture and sculpture. We will jump between the Hotshop and the Fab Lab, cutting digitally designed parts with a CNC plasma cutter and assembling and further manipulating the parts through metalworking techniques. We will sketch, model, critique, and weld. Whether your goals are sculptural or functional, living in a virtual 3D space, or for a public art sculpture, Haystack will become our creative laboratory. Experience with Rhino and computer modeling is a plus, but not necessary. All levels welcome.

Hannah Vaughan (she/her) is a designer and craftswoman, originally from Los Angeles, CA. She currently runs her own design/build studio in the Hudson Valley in Newburgh, NY. Studio projects range from large sculptural installations and furniture design to architectural works. Vaughan’s design has a direct material brutality to it, from using crushed cars and chainsaw-carved stumps to large rusted panels. Her works combine a primitive urgency with the infrastructure of our industrial landscape.

Vivian Beer (she/her) is a designer/sculptor based in New England. Her sleek, abstracted metal and concrete furniture combine the sensibilities of contemporary design, craft, and sculpture to create objects that alter viewers’ expectations of and interface with the domestic landscape and public spaces. Beer received a BFA from Maine College of Art & Design and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy. Her work is in many museum and public art collections, and she has held numerous residencies, including at the Penland. She was a 2014 Research Fellow at the Smithsonian, was the winner of Ellen Degeneres’ Design Challenge, and named a 2017 USA Fellow.

Going back centuries, forging nails has been one of the first duties for the apprentice blacksmith seeking to improve their craft. Nail making requires less physical force or prior blacksmithing experience. This three-hour taster course is the perfect starting lesson for absolute beginners with zero experience. In this course, you’ll make a variety of nails in a variety of sizes (as time permits).

This is the perfect class for the aspiring smith and avid foodie! By making a variety of kitchen implements from barbecue forks to bottle openers you will gain a thorough grounding in basic blacksmithing techniques!
Students will learn blacksmithing techniques such as tapering, scrolling, bending, punching, drifting, shouldering, dishing, slitting, hot cutting, riveting and so much more! Using these techniques, students will leave with a barbecue skewer, chopsticks, kitchen hooks, forks, a bottle opener, a forge welded spatula, a lobster cracker and a forged and riveted ladle.
Open studio hours to work on projects during the course are included. Open studio runs Monday (3-6pm), Thursday (3-6pm) and Sunday (5-8pm). Students will have access to 6 open studio sessions during their course.
This course welcomes all skill levels!

Hooks are a great beginner blacksmithing project and they’re immediately useful! In this three-hour taster class, we’ll focus on J-hooks and S-hooks of different styles. We’ll aim to send you home with two or three functional hooks. In this class, you’ll learn basic blacksmithing skills such as tapering, punching, drifting, bending, and twisting.

During this weekend workshop students will get an introduction to the craft of the blacksmith while making fun decorative hooks for their home. Learn and try many of the skills and techniques that make forging fun and special such as tapering, texturing, bending, scrolling, twisting and punching.

Whether you have tried forging before or have always been curious about it, this workshop is perfect for people who want to have fun and learn about this traditional craft in a historic location. The goal of this weekend is to give students the tools, techniques and space to try forging in a fun environment and empower them to make unique hand crafted hooks that are sure to accent their home or will make great gifts. Students can expect to learn about and try making several different styles of individual hooks and if time allows, rivet a couple to a back plate for a small coat or hat rack.

This workshop is open to everyone, no prior experience is necessary to participate. Come alone or sign up with a friend or loved one and forge together making memories and hooks that will last a lifetime.

This is a two-day class where we will forge and finish a friction folder pocketknife using simple forging tools. Drawing out the blade and forming the handle with an emphasis on clear understanding of the process and technique, including heat treatment, grinding, and sharpening the blade.

Forged friction folders are the simplest forms of a folding knife, and are very useful and enjoyable to make. There is no lock or mechanism holding the blade open or closed, so the lever is one of the focal points of the knife working correctly. The lever is a fascinating part of the design of this project. The forging of it is an exercise in the movement of mass creating a transition between handle and blade.

Another focal point is the pivot action. In order to work correctly, the blade must be forged so it sits in the handle evenly in the closed and open position. The forging itself becomes integral to the action of this folding knife.

I’ve been using NYC Subway tokens as washers for the outside of the pivot, and I’m thrilled that CMA was able to locate tokens from Johnstown that we will use to make these special.

This three-hour taster class shows you how to forge an eye-catching two-piece hairpin for you or to give as a gift! Learn basic blacksmithing skills such as tapering, scrolling, bending, twisting, and finishing. This project is a great entry to blacksmithing while introducing you to wearable forged art. The skills you learn in this class will carry over to other forging projects. No prior experience is needed. You will learn basic blacksmithing techniques including tapering, scrolling, bending, twisting, and finishing.

Hooks are a great beginner blacksmithing project and they’re immediately useful! In this three-hour taster class, we’ll focus on J-hooks and S-hooks of different styles. We’ll aim to send you home with two or three functional hooks. In this class, you’ll learn basic blacksmithing skills such as tapering, punching, drifting, bending, and twisting.

This course will explore basic blacksmithing techniques and serve as an introduction to a centuries-old art. Starting with copper (which can be worked cold) students will explore smithing skills such as tapering, drawing, and bending using a series of hammers and an anvil as they create a rose using the “Imperial Rose” technique.
Once students have familiarized themselves with these basic skills we’ll move to steel. Students will be able to use their newly-acquired smithing skills to forge and shape steel to create a steel rose, changing a rigid piece of industrially-created metal to create an organic, individual shape.
No prior blacksmithing or metalworking experience is necessary.

Be the envy of everyone at dinner! This course will teach you how to forge and finish your own set of mild-steel chopsticks. Students will forge two pieces of thin, round-stock into a long, faceted square chopsticks with a round taper at the end. In addition, each student will add a decorative twist to the tops of their chopsticks.
Forging one of something is relatively easy. This course will focus on forging two pieces that are the same width, length, and feel natural and symmetrical when using them to grip and eat food.
Forging in mild steel (rather than stainless) makes this process more forgiving for beginners. The instructor will provide instructions on how to clean and care for your mild-steel chopsticks.

The bottle opener … it’s everyone’s favorite tool and a great conversation starter at a party! In this workshop, students will learn the fundamentals of blacksmithing, while focusing on forging their own handmade bottle openers. A perfect introduction to the craft of forging, this course teaches the basics of heating, hammering, and shaping steel.
In three hours, we will cover techniques such as punching, drifting, tapering, and more. This class focuses on forging techniques for small pieces; think less brute force and more precise detail. No need to be big and burly!
No previous experience necessary; all tools and materials are provided.

Steel is typically seen as a rigid, industrial material – steel girders support vast roofs, steel automobiles are stamped out with machine precision, and even mundane items such as food cans and kitchen appliances are created with straight, exact lines. In this class we’ll be exploring how we can change this rigid material into a graceful, organic shape using both new and old techniques. We’ll use a blend of modern and ancient techniques to shape mild steel and add character and fluidness to what will ultimately become a tentacle-shaped keychain.
Students will learn blacksmithing techniques that reach back as far as the 14th century such as drawing, tapering, and bending in addition to modern techniques such as MIG welding to create additional features on our tentacle. Particular attention will be paid to hammer technique while blacksmithing as this class serves as an introduction to blacksmithing. Students will also be introduced to basic shop techniques and safety including the use of belt sanders, angle grinders, and drill presses. A small amount of introduction to MIG welding will be provided but this course will not cover MIG welding techniques in depth.

One of the great tricks of blacksmithing is making a non-organic material (steel) look like something living. In this class, students will learn to forge one of the most common organic forms in blacksmithing: the leaf.
During this class, you’ll learn about tapering, isolating, spreading, shaping, and texturing steel, but at a small scale. This class focuses on forging pieces that are closer to jewelry size as compared to many traditional blacksmithing products. As a result, these small pieces present their own set of interesting challenges and specific processes.

Throughout this workshop, students will learn to make their own functional and decorative spoons, spatulas, and more with a focus on refinement, design, and delicate forging. The class will cover the basics of forging, forming, bending, and file work to make single piece steel utensils. Students will be encouraged to push themselves on accurate forging and explore their own unique details and designs. This class is great for those new to blacksmithing or for people with prior experience who want to build their forging accuracy and design skills. Come learn to make your own unique hand-forged utensils in a fun, enthusiastic, and inclusive environment!

During this workshop students will forge their own belt buckles from small sections of structural steel and flat bar. Ample time will be spent exploring a variety of forging processes and techniques both at the power hammer and anvil. Embellishment experimentation through the use of hand tools for texture or patterning will also be demonstrated and encouraged.

Creating the mounting hardware and belt catch will be covered through processes such as sheet metal forming in jigs, cutting, filing, and drilling. Joinery will also be covered through riveting as the focus and main technique connecting your belt buckle to the hardware. This is an important skill for connecting forged elements together without the use of modern welding machines, and also translates well to larger scale work. Belt buckles will be created to fit a standard 1.5” leather belt and discussion about application of patinas and finishes will also be covered.

Bring your patience in layout, creativity in forging, and a belt with a changeable buckle to create a unique way to hold up your pants.

In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore forged steel while developing beginning techniques using the power hammer. Through guided instruction and practice, students will craft a variety of textured components, transforming basic shapes like squares and circles into intricate designs.

Throughout the class, we will introduce innovative surface finishing techniques, including the use of non-traditional spray paint methods to achieve vibrant and unique color patterns. Participants will have the chance to experiment with these finishes on their forged pieces, adding a bold and unconventional aesthetic to their work. As the first project, participants will assemble their textured and finished components into a cohesive steel panel inspired by the concept of a family quilt. This “quilted” panel will serve as a reflection of their creativity, skill, and individual style developed during the workshop.

Students will have the opportunity to build on the techniques and concepts introduced in the workshop, designing and creating additional works that reflect their personal vision. They may choose to take their work in a three-dimensional direction, create a series of wall pieces, or continue adding to their original “quilted” panel. This progression allows for deeper exploration, experimentation, and the development of a truly unique body of work.

Forging experience is not required. We will build your skills and confidence in the studio. Bring your curiosity, enthusiasm, and an open mind. By the end of the workshop, students will leave with at least one completed forged piece, material studies and a deeper appreciation for this traditional craft through the lens of a contemporary approach.

In this week-long class, students will make a pencil compass. From accurate forging to fine detailed finish work, this project contains many opportunities for learning and growth. Working at the anvil, students will be challenged to create forgings as close to the finished form as possible. Forge welding, punching and drifting, and both open and closed die forging are just a few of the techniques that will be covered to help achieve that goal. Students will then move to the bench where they will fit and assemble the forged parts. Filing will be taught as both a means to refine and decorate the parts of the compass. Should time allow, a brief introduction to inlay will be offered as another option for ornamentation. Students should expect to spend at least as much time at the bench as they do at the forge. This is a technical project, and therefore some experience forging is highly recommended if students expect to finish the compass.

During this one-day workshop students will experience a great hands-on introduction to forging while creating their very own fire pokers.

This exercise covers several skills necessary to build a foundation on which to start forging and is a great experience for anyone interested in trying their hand at the craft. Skills that will be covered include but aren’t limited to, tapering, scrolling, forming, twisting, and texturing. Different poker terminations as well as handles will be demonstrated, and students can expect to try their hand at several styles.

This tool is great for tending your backyard fire or keeping the fireplace or wood stove warm in the winter. A hand forged fire poker makes a great conversation piece while sitting around the fire spending time with friends and family or is a great gift for the fire enthusiast in your life.

Throughout this 30-hour, five-day class, you’ll be challenged physically as you build the skills and knowledge to forge tools with advanced blacksmithing techniques.

The axe you’ll be forging is commonly referred to as a Woodland, Hunter’s, or Ranger Hatchet. It will be made of 1066 steel with an ash handle and have a custom leather sheath. The overall length will be 15-1/2 to 16 inches. The hatchet head will have a four-inch cutting edge and a width of about six inches. It’s just the right size for the adventurer, camper, or hunter.

You'll learn how to forge large volumes of steel while keeping good grain structure. You’ll learn to use fullers, punches, and other hand tools to shape the hatchet heads. There will be an in-depth lecture on heat treatment and how to develop proper tool steel. You’ll also be guided through shaping and fitting the ash handle to fit your hands.

Materials
A materials fee of $120, included in the price of the class, covers everything you will need.
Prerequisites
You must have completed at least one forge class or have recent forge experience.
BARN Policies
View BARN's Cancellation and Refund Policy.
Tuition Assistance is available. Fill out the application before registering.
BARN is committed to accessibility. We try to make accommodations when requested; the earlier you contact us, the more likely we can help. Fill out the Accommodation Request Form before any class for which you require an accommodation. Email accessibility@bainbridgebarn.org if you have any questions.
Sensory Statement: Makerspaces like BARN can be noisy and cluttered, smell strongly, and have bright or flickering lights. BARN is not an allergen-free facility. If you have concerns, please email info@bainbridgebarn.org.
Instructors or Guides
Yori Seeger

Yori is a sculptor and a blacksmith who trained in Florence, Italy, and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute. He cofounded an art school called Visual Philosophy where he created and taught the curriculum for both blacksmithing and sculpting programs. He has worked in sculpture studios, foundries, and blacksmith shops for 20-plus years. He specializes in large-scale, figurative sculpture; ornamental ironwork; and forging woodworking tools. He's also very passionate about teaching these trades and traditions.