adam hawk

Last Monday I went down to Penland to visit Adam Hawk and see his slideshow. Adam has been teaching a workshop for the last two weeks in the Iron Studio at Penland. Adam is running the Digital Fabrication program that I started at UWM and he has also started a Blacksmithing program at UWM. He has gotten considerable funding from the Windgate Foundation and really build a stellar blacksmithing studio. I have an undergrad who received a Digital Fabrication Fellowship to go work with Adam and I've been following his work for quite some time. I had connected with him for the first time a few months ago at Fire on the Mountain, but I thought it would be cool to see what he's teaching and see some of his samples. Adam showed me a bunch of sample pattern plates that he milled in steel and then used as forging dies for 3D work. He also showed me some of his experiments with canister Damascus using 3D printed extrusion patterns. Cool stuff for certain! He was also working on a small sculpture for the auction as he was teaching. It looked like the students were learning a lot and having a really good time. I ran into some other familiar faces while I was visiting and had some great conversations. I'm thankful that Adam took the time to visit with me and show me around. Always good to connect with him.

Adam has milled several of these pieces on the other Tormach I purchased with grant money when I was at UWM. I really like how he's using the milled steel tooling to create other work. It's a smart use of CNC machining. I also really like that there's a layering of process that leads to the work/pieces having more character. I also like that the 3D pieces are born out of a fairly flat tool and that he's not simply machining a 3D object out a large block of material. The process seems economical and smart. I've had ideas about forging aluminum forms from CNC machined steel dies so this was really intriguing to me. 

I'm reminded by how great my location is for being able to connect with so many makers that come to this area to teach and how this impacts my thinking. Feeling grateful for where I'm at today.