[hiss of steam] NOL PUTNAM: There we go.
NOL PUTNAM: Woo!
[cicadas] [crunch of grass] * [crackling fire, hammer banging] NOL PUTNAM: Make sure I'm doing this right.
[scraping metal] [cicadas in the distance] [metal hitting metal] NOL PUTNAM: I'm going to do this again.
[metal scraping] [roar of forge] [grunts] NOL PUTNAM: Oh no, that's good.
NOL PUTNAM: I had bought my wife an anvil, with it came a forge.
I had a book left from teaching and I thought why not try it today?
So I got the wrong kind of coal, when out and built a fire in the forge, found a piece of scrap iron, shoved it in the fire, pulled it out, put it on the anvil, hit it with my Dad's stone hammer and it moved.
And that was it.
NOL: And I thought this is incredible.
So, I cashed in all my savings, and started to teach myself to be a blacksmith.
[paper rustling] NOL: Some time in the mid-'80s, I started designing the gates for the Cathedral.
Always at the beginning when you have a white sheet of paper the hardest thing is to make the first mark.
So you just let it rip, let anything happen.
This paper's a lot cheaper than iron.
That's the first part, then we add the flowers and then we add the details of the flowers.
The idea of all of these gates was resurrection, life after death, rebirth.
A watercolor rendering of what it's going to look like makes it come alive a little bit more.
I didn't really like the color I came up with, but you try to make a nice presentation 'cause, you don't want them to think you're some country bumpkin out there.
So you try to spruce it up a little bit.
[cathedral bells ringing] * NOL: I always think of the Cathedral as a nominally an episcopal Cathedral but actually a church for mankind, humankind.
What I like about iron work, the hammer blows merge and they're the ones that catch the light and bring the gate to life.
It's a living thing, not inanimate, not machine made, not static.
It's life.
JIM SHEPHERD: In many ways the iron work is some of the most tactile.
There's beautiful stained glass that sits up high that casts beautiful shadows, there's carved stone on the outside of the building, but the gates, the knobs, the locking devices and the details that adorn those gates, um those are things you can really touch and really feel the energy and the craft that went into them.
It's really magical to think that something so, so strong and hard uh can be shaped to be so delicate.
NOL: It's all put together like a puzzle, rivets, collars, collars.
This has got a rivet in the back, can't have any tacky brass showing so you hide where the key goes.
This was the first gate, given in honor of Canon Crawford Brown, who was a scholar.
That's why I put a book in here in reference to his life's work.
It's all done by traditional blacksmithing techniques, classical European technique.
It's a lot of work for a little gate but it's um... close to my heart.
This is the Clagett gate, Nancy Leiter Clagett.
It was in memory of her given by her husband.
Her favorite flower was the yellow rose.
Yellow is the only color I can reproduce in ironwork.
You can still see some of the tracings of brass rubbing.
Handmade bolts out of raw stock, the leaves for growth, and resurrection, spring.
This time it's put together with four little quatrefoils instead of two in the other one.
You could almost put them up and they would be identical, but not quite.
And that's what makes the gate alive.
That these will often vary by as much as a quarter of an inch.
I mean we could have them all made by machine but why?
Then it's...pfftt dull, flat and so on.
[bells ringing] NOL: If you look at the Cathedral and you know the gargoyles, there's humor all through them and it's the same thing here you just [click sound] insert it.
Yeah.
The main gate is a series of horizontals and verticals so you have a nice fat rivet head that you can decorate.
Yoda is on one of them, my family's initials are on another one, backwards, so you have to hold a mirror up to look at it.
* NOL: This is the last gate I did for the Cathedral.
This was done in the mid 1990's.
The rivets are all different.
Each flower center is all different.
Really if you look at the centers you can see the breadth of what's possible with hot iron and tooling.
Some of my favorites are these little fern-like pieces here and seed pods that come out.
There are 250 leaves in this gate and they were all made out of one inch square bar, so a lot of pounding.
It took 1200 hours.
1200 hours to forge the gate and it weighs 1200 lbs.
Otherwise I'd never remember if it wasn't the same.
It took four of us to carry it in and we put it up it took about 5 minutes to install.
[metal softly clanking] JOE ALONSO: That was a really cool day to be a part of 'cause it had been a long time since a major piece of wrought iron, of iron work uh was created for the Cathedral.
And uh you know everything had just so beautifully constructed and so beautifully fabricated they just [clucking sound] dropped right in and uh the cool thing is that first swing, [metal scraping metal] that first swing and it filling the space.
NOL: There's a phosphorus bronze washer in here which is why it's so easy to open.
You just, one finger.
You have to think of the engineering and how it's going to hold together, over the, I'm going to say centuries.
It just feels so good.
[laughter] NOL: It's big, it's strong, it shows the hammer work...
I almost like that better than the front.
Not quite.
Here you're much closer to the flowers so the flowers are much more delicate.
On the other side you have a long entranceway so you see the gate from a long way away and it has to be much stronger in order not to look small and then when you get close to it you see the details and of course, as they say, that's where God hides in the details.
Little grape tendril coming off all twisted on itself.
It's so inconsequential and yet it's so important.
It's the little touches that when you get close you see and it's more than a gate, it's a sculpture, it's a... an artistic endeavor, um, and it will be there forever.
It's really, as he says modestly, it's a nice piece of work.
[chuckles] JOE ALONSO: Whether it's stone, wood, uh, marble, you are at the top of your game when you're putting your work into this building.
JIM SHEPHERD: When we look at the various crafts in the building, always seeking out the very best craftsmen in their disciplines because this really becomes a Mecca for people who come to see the best of the best in stained glass, iron work, stone carving, mosaics and decorative painting.
* NOL: To be chosen to do ironwork for the Cathedral, I get goosebumps when I think about it and it's a little overwhelming and it brings tears.
It brings tears to think that my work is here.
Um uh...
I have goosebumps now as we talk about it.
[laughs] Tears will be next.
[laughs] [ominous music] NOL: Last year was the 100th anniversary of the battle of the Somme.
And the blacksmiths uh in England wanted to make a memorial for the farrier blacksmiths who served at the battle of the Somme.
There were 75,000 horses.
So obviously they had a lot of blacksmiths.
So they conceived of the idea of making poppies which is a symbol in Flanders Field which came out of the First World War.
And we made 2001 poppies and they solicited them from blacksmiths around the world.
Two thousand of them were a memorial to the blacksmiths, to the farriers, the final one, the one was painted white distinguishing it, and that was in memory of all the non-combatants who were killed and also in honor of those members of the White Feather Society.
Those um conscientious objectors which if they found themselves at the front, and they were killed they were considered traitors.
I have five relatives that served in the First World War.
Three of them served in the French Ambulance Corps, before the United States entered the War in 1916, and two of them came through the U.S. Army and served there and one of them served in the Navy, my Grandfather was in the Navy.
And so I wanted to do beyond what we sent to the Somme I wanted to do something in recognition of my own family that served in the service.
And uh, I mean it's a, I love the design, it's beautiful, the way you forge it just gives it so much life and playful and the light reflects off it and it's, just makes me feel good.
So the first thing I get is a blank, uh which looks like a quatrefoil and I get that cut out and then I forge those under what is called a power hammer, a mechanical hammer; [hammer pounding] they're all different if you see there, it's just the vagaries of the hammer and the heat and how I hold them but that's what gives it it's life.
And the same with the Cathedral gates they're all hammered out so each one is a little bit different and it makes it come alive.
The eye does not get bored.
So I make this part first and then I take a rod a bar that's fat about, as fat as, if you can see in there.
And I shape that, I'll draw a stem out of it and then I make the poppy those of you familiar with poppies you know its a seed pod that comes at the top.
So the little things that are going to pop out.
[ouch] And then I put this through, [metal scraping] weld it on the back so it doesn't move.
Paint it, make it long enough, go into the ground... et voila.
Probably when I was four or five, I would tag along with my stepfather and do work and he had a very a visceral connection to France.
He was not French but he'd served there in the Ambulance Corp, so there was a great French connection.
But November 11th at 11 o'clock at 11AM was always a very special moment and so I can remember he would pause he would stop and he would stand at attention and he'd give the salute of the French poilu.
And um occasionally, you know, his eyes would moisten, sometimes tears would come down his cheek.
I had no idea what this was about at four or five but as I grew up I began to understand this then seemed like a very... a memorial or a tribute to that growth and understanding and into my family and so many others who served in that um bestial war.
[ominous music fades] [metal scraping in distance] [match strike] [hum of forge blower fan] [paper crumbling] NOL: I made a small piece a table top piece kind of like that and then somebody said, can we make it bigger?
And I said within reason.
[chuckles] And so that's what this is.
[metal scraping] [chain scraping metal bar] [fire crackling] NOL: These are Kevlar gloves, I have to dance around here a little bit.
[metal scraping in background] NOL: Ok. NOL: Ah Yes!
* [buzzing of grinder] [metal scraping] [buzzing] NOL: I've been fascinated always of how you open a bar and then pass something through it.
That's in a lot of my small pieces [hammering] and occasionally in a big one because it's so bloody hard to split that out.
So I want something that's light, and airy and reaching towards the heavens, for whatever your spiritual peculiarity is.
Clouds, dreams, hopes, fears.
Let them come through and go through hard stuff and then emerge into something triumphant and light.
So there's all kinds of sort of spiritual and physical aspirations put into the whole thing.
[hammering in background] * [metal scraping] [birds chirping] [seatbelt warning dinging] JOHN JACQUEMIN: Good to see you.
[dog barks] NOL: And I'll bring it over.
JOHN JACQUEMIN: Look at that.
Beautiful.
NOL: Look at the shadow.
TRACIE JACQUEMIN: Oh look at that.
Oh my gosh.
NOL PUTNAM: Shwoo.
[laughter] JOHN JACQUEMIN: Place it along here, Tracie, I'd like to get your ideas.
Let's start out center.
[sound of birds chirping] [lawn mower in background] [snipping] NOL: The other thing that you are missing on this is the dimension.
You're not always going to be seeing it straight on.
So as soon as you go off center you're going to see the thickness and that builds it up in your mind.
JOHN JACQUEMIN: Right.
[sound of birds chirping] JOHN JACQUEMIN: And please I want to see you work on that.
NOL: Oh I'll call you definitely.
JOHN: Ok. NOL: I'll give you the sledge hammer if you'd like.
JOHN: Ok. [laughter] NOL: One's two and a half and one's three and a half.
NOL: Smart man.
[laughter] NOL: That's good, now belt it.
[hammer chimes] JOHN: Ooh.
NOL: That's alright you stayed in the groove.
[hammer chimes] JOHN JACQUEMIN: That's right?
NOL: Good.
[hammer chimes] NOL: We're going to label this, John's- JOHN JACQUEMIN: John's Folly.
[laughter in the background] This is why the piece wasn't perfect.
[metal grinding] [hammering] JOHN: It's not exactly a marshmallow.
NOL: No.
[chiming of hammering] * NOL: It's pretty good.
And I just keep working it around.
TRACIE JACQUEMIN: Wow.
NOL: Panting as I go.
JOHN: I'll bet that would be good for seared tuna.
NOL: It would be.
[group laughing] JOHN JACQUEMIN: There's something really visceral about it.
NOL PUTNAM: Yeah.
[chuckles] JOHN: And it's, something you know has been going on for...how long?
Thousands of years.
NOL: Thousands of years.
JOHN JACQUEMIN: Protection otherwise.
[grinding of metal] NOL: Instead of taking this around and threading it through the hole, I'm going to take it around and lay it on top of it, cut one edge of the hole, raise the hole up, drop the piece in, put the lap back down.
What I need out here is too long to thread the whole thing through.
I could do it but it would take hours, hours.
[metal hitting table, scraping] [flute music] NOL: ok, more here.
[metal scraping] NOL: Ok, I went to far.
[clank of hammer] [clicks tongue] NOL: Right in the line.
That's the wonderful thing about iron, it is so forgiving.
[metal hitting metal] NOL: Leverage... leverage is great.
NOL: Creating art is a, is pretty lonely.
You spend a lot of time alone trying to figure out what you're doing and why on earth are you doing this.
You create the idea and you hope that other people will support you in doing that, but it's not a guarantee.
There are no guarantees in this.
[ominous music] [metal clanking] NOL: There, done.
[panting] [cicadas in the distance] NOL: This piece will come up and into the feather, I haven't made the feather yet.
And then we're almost done.
[claps hands] [flute music] NOL: Writers, painters, sculptors, Malcolm & Eddie Cowley, Peter Blume, Van Wyck Brooks, Alexander and Louisa Calder.
They would sit around and they would discuss the War or their experiences in the First World War where all of the horror had gone.
They just remembered the bawdy songs they sang or whatever else.
It was a pretty mixed group and pretty high powered but they were just my parent's friends.
Out of college, it was I couldn't become an artist.
I mean, you know I'd grown up with these people they were too ah (gasps).
So I became a school teacher for 14 years.
That was a good profession.
And I loved it, I loved it.
Almost killed myself in it but I loved it.
But then so I left and so I knew I wanted to work with my hands well working with your hands is not just your hands, and I don't care whether you're starting out as a plumber or woodworker or a carpenter you work with your hands and your head and if you're lucky you get to add the heart.
[sound of cicadas] [footsteps] [sprinkling of coal] NOL: Metalworking is the second oldest profession in the world, [rattle of coal] and I know what you're thinking about the first one but the first one is pottery.
The creation of small fetish figures and so on.
The smith became sort of a magical figure.
He could change the material and so people thought often he was linked with the devil.
And so there's lots of mythology that's grown up around blacksmithing and then when you start making edge tools, knives, hoes, scythes, swords then you get a whole 'nother mystical thing happening.
[hammering] NOL: In the winter it's too cold, when you touch it when you pick it up it's cold.
Uh, in the summer its too hot.
So the relationship with metal is love/hate.
[hammer banging] It takes a lot of effort to make it move, it takes a lot of time to learn the skill to move it the way you want to move it for what you have in your mind's eye.
It takes a lot of different tools [hammer hits] and most of them nowadays you can't buy so we become tool makers.
It's a much more complex process then most people have any idea.
And I find with my age now that I sort of have to gird my loins to think ok, today I'm going to the forge and I'm going to do thus and such and it's cold or rainy out and I'm thinking there's no heat in the forge da da da da... except the fire of course.
And it's a, it's a love/hate relationship.
When I get through with something that I like, I think oh yeah, I really like that.
It makes me feel good.
But if I look at the raw stock lining up on the wall I think oh god that's a lot of work.
[laughing] [metal grinding] NOL: I have this saying in blacksmithing that patience is a virtue; seldom in a woman, never in a man but always in a blacksmith [chuckles] you just can't hurry it.
[metal grinding] [contemplative music] NOL: Art is often thought of as a frill.
Something you can have when you have everything else and I don't believe that.
I think art and the appreciation of beauty, whether it's in nature or God in the sky, sunsets or whether you're creating something in iron or clay or cloth, artistry and paint.
I think that is a basic component of the soul, the health of the soul and as we look out into the world.
[sighs] NOL PUTNAM: For a long time people thought if I sail too far out of the Mediterranean, they'd fall off and nobody knew what was there.
What would happen if you came to the edge and you looked into the abyss, what is down there, what can you see.
Not only look down but allow ourselves to fall down.
Could we catch ourselves at the bottom and what would it be like.
What is the bottom?
What would you learn in the process?
Um, can you risk yourself?
It's really about risking.
It's about knowing there's the unknown out there and then risking yourself to move to the edge to that border land and um seeing what happens.
It's scary being an artist.
I know how to make leaves, I can make candle stands, I can make poppies and so on.
But if you let yourself think about going to the edge what would that edge be, what would it look like?
Um, can I dream it?
If I dream it, can I sketch it, if I sketch it can I make it.
If I make it what on earth does it say.
There are a whole series of steps, it gives me goosebumps talking about it.
* [crackling of fire] [banging of hammer]
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