T h e a r t i s a n
At Mooney's Welding 1984
Like so many knifemakers, I can trace my interest in knives back to childhood – I remember my father taking my sister and me to the circus when I was seven or eight years old. I don’t remember the lions or clowns or tightrope walkers. What I do remember is the souvenir knife with a compass in the stag handle and a fringed suede sheath that I convinced my father to buy for me.
Growing up I was both artistically and mechanically inclined (If something needed fixing, it was brought to me .... radios, TV’s, toasters, jewelry, anything). I was a serious amateur photographer all through junior and senior high school. I had a darkroom at home and often skipped classes to go out and photograph or take trips to New York to see the photography shows at the Witkin Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art.
After a miserable year at a liberal arts college, I transferred to the Philadelphia College of Art (PCA) to major in photography. But after taking a required sculpture course, I knew I wanted to work with real, physical, gritty, dirty…. stuff. After leaving school, I stayed mostly in the Philadelphia area, but traveled a lot, as tickets to Europe were cheap and the dollar was strong. I moved out of the city and worked a series of jobs that had in common only their physicality and their dirtiness. I labored in an iron foundry, cleaned stalls on a dairy farm, cut and split firewood for a winter, kept the grounds on a large estate and trimmed trees.
Growing up I was both artistically and mechanically inclined (If something needed fixing, it was brought to me .... radios, TV’s, toasters, jewelry, anything). I was a serious amateur photographer all through junior and senior high school. I had a darkroom at home and often skipped classes to go out and photograph or take trips to New York to see the photography shows at the Witkin Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art.
After a miserable year at a liberal arts college, I transferred to the Philadelphia College of Art (PCA) to major in photography. But after taking a required sculpture course, I knew I wanted to work with real, physical, gritty, dirty…. stuff. After leaving school, I stayed mostly in the Philadelphia area, but traveled a lot, as tickets to Europe were cheap and the dollar was strong. I moved out of the city and worked a series of jobs that had in common only their physicality and their dirtiness. I labored in an iron foundry, cleaned stalls on a dairy farm, cut and split firewood for a winter, kept the grounds on a large estate and trimmed trees.
First Knife
Eventually I moved back into the city and started working nights in restaurants to finance the artwork I made during the day. Then, sometime around 1975, I walked into a bookshop and came across Sid Latham’s book “Knives and Knifemakers”. I had no idea knives could be so beautiful, or that people could actually make them! So, I went back to PCA, signed up for an evening class in blacksmithing taught by Jack Andrews, bought an old leaf spring at a junkyard and spent the next few months grinding away at a blade – I still have that first knife - it’s not a bad tool and I use it almost everyday in the workshop.
Knives for Paul Jaeger Guns
I made a few more blades, using nothing more than files and sand paper, and later built a belt grinder and started acquiring more tools. I moved into a small industrial building north of center city, set up a shop on the first floor, lived upstairs and started selling knives… through ads in “Gray’s Sporting Journal”, and through gun shops in the area. One year I flew out to a Knifemakers Guild show in Kansas City with some of my knives, rounded up support and became a probationary member of the Guild.
Besides making knives, I was working as a studio assistant for Remo Saraceni, an Italian sculptor who had his home and studio across the street from me (the piano in the Tom Hanks movie Big was one of Remo’s pieces). I was also working with friend and artist Tom Callis, building custom furniture, frames and bookcases. When I got a call from Jack Andrews to grind blades for him for a line of woodcarving knives he developed, I did that too.
Besides making knives, I was working as a studio assistant for Remo Saraceni, an Italian sculptor who had his home and studio across the street from me (the piano in the Tom Hanks movie Big was one of Remo’s pieces). I was also working with friend and artist Tom Callis, building custom furniture, frames and bookcases. When I got a call from Jack Andrews to grind blades for him for a line of woodcarving knives he developed, I did that too.
Don Primitivo - Cualac, Mexico 1980
Through Remo, I was introduced to the Mexican fiber artist Yosi Anaya, who had seen my knives when she was in Philadelphia for a conference. She told me about Don Primitivo Pablo Romano, a machete maker she knew in the mountains north of Oaxaca in the state of Guerrero, and suggested I come visit sometime. So, when Yosi returned to Mexico, I went with her. You can read about my time with Don Primitivo HERE.
I came back to Philadelphia deeply moved by the trip. A few days after I got back, I woke up one night and wrote thirteen lines on a scrap of paper about the dream I had had of a life in Mexico and of making knives there. I put the paper in my wallet and carried it with me - forgotten about most of the time. Soon after the trip, my life unraveled - the home, the workshop, and my marriage, came to an end. I was at a crossroad. I thought long and hard about moving to Mexico, but I was young and too afraid.
Instead, I found some new workspace at Mooney’s Welding on Delaware Avenue, in a gritty industrial area down on the Philadelphia waterfront. Brothers Tom and Mike Mooney had a couple hundred feet of extra space, so I brought in my worktables and tools and got to work. I was used to starting late, and working late, so it was tough being forced to keep regular business hours – but I worked when the Mooney’s did, from early in the morning until five or six in the evening, Monday through Friday. Sometimes half a day on Saturdays. A couple of big German Shepherd junkyard dogs kept everyone out, including me, when the Mooney brothers weren’t there.
I came back to Philadelphia deeply moved by the trip. A few days after I got back, I woke up one night and wrote thirteen lines on a scrap of paper about the dream I had had of a life in Mexico and of making knives there. I put the paper in my wallet and carried it with me - forgotten about most of the time. Soon after the trip, my life unraveled - the home, the workshop, and my marriage, came to an end. I was at a crossroad. I thought long and hard about moving to Mexico, but I was young and too afraid.
Instead, I found some new workspace at Mooney’s Welding on Delaware Avenue, in a gritty industrial area down on the Philadelphia waterfront. Brothers Tom and Mike Mooney had a couple hundred feet of extra space, so I brought in my worktables and tools and got to work. I was used to starting late, and working late, so it was tough being forced to keep regular business hours – but I worked when the Mooney’s did, from early in the morning until five or six in the evening, Monday through Friday. Sometimes half a day on Saturdays. A couple of big German Shepherd junkyard dogs kept everyone out, including me, when the Mooney brothers weren’t there.
1980's Forged Blades
I began experimenting with Damascus Steel, which I was first introduced to by bladesmith Bill Moran at a Knifemakers Guild show in Kansas City. I had forging experience, but I knew nothing about making a pattern welded blade - not too many people did back then. I enrolled in a week long course in Tennessee with Damascus steel pioneer Daryl Meier, and came back with a real Damascus knife I made and a notebook full of instructions. I took a day trip down to Delaware to Bill Gichners Iron Age Antiques and bought a cast iron Champion coal forge, a hundred and fifty pound Haybudden anvil and a 25 pound Little Giant power hammer. Bill threw in some assorted tongs and delivered the equipment to Mooney’s. I built a hood and chimney for the forge and started hammering blades… Some Damascus knives and some San Mai style, with O1 steel cores and cutting edges.
It was a struggle though - financially (I took the occasional restaurant or photography job to earn some extra cash) and emotionally (it was still early in the custom knifemaking world and I had doubts as to whether or not I could really make a go of it). Then I fell in love again and remarried, and with a lot of encouragement and support from my new wife, gave up knifemaking in 1984. I kept most of my workshop, selling only the forge, power hammer and anvil…the stuff that was just too heavy to carry around. And then started up one of the pioneer American craft breweries, the Dock Street Brewing Company.
By 2009 a whole life had been lived. A home and a beautiful family were created. A daughter and a son were born and grew up. Birthdays, schools, vacations, weddings, dinners, friends, books, concerts, deaths, dogs, birds, hospitals, parties, graduations..... And then I found myself again at yet another crossroad in life.
I was still carrying the dream of Mexico in my pocket. I still had my fears ……… was I now too old? Was it too late? I was too young to retire and still had years of working ahead of me. Could I really do it? Eventually I decided that I had to. Partly for me and partly for my children. I wanted them to see that an important part of being a man (or a woman) is having the courage to go after your dream.
So in January of 2010 I packed up my workshop, some books and a stereo and set off for Merida, Yucatan with my daughter as co-driver, to start making knives .... and a new life.
It was a struggle though - financially (I took the occasional restaurant or photography job to earn some extra cash) and emotionally (it was still early in the custom knifemaking world and I had doubts as to whether or not I could really make a go of it). Then I fell in love again and remarried, and with a lot of encouragement and support from my new wife, gave up knifemaking in 1984. I kept most of my workshop, selling only the forge, power hammer and anvil…the stuff that was just too heavy to carry around. And then started up one of the pioneer American craft breweries, the Dock Street Brewing Company.
By 2009 a whole life had been lived. A home and a beautiful family were created. A daughter and a son were born and grew up. Birthdays, schools, vacations, weddings, dinners, friends, books, concerts, deaths, dogs, birds, hospitals, parties, graduations..... And then I found myself again at yet another crossroad in life.
I was still carrying the dream of Mexico in my pocket. I still had my fears ……… was I now too old? Was it too late? I was too young to retire and still had years of working ahead of me. Could I really do it? Eventually I decided that I had to. Partly for me and partly for my children. I wanted them to see that an important part of being a man (or a woman) is having the courage to go after your dream.
So in January of 2010 I packed up my workshop, some books and a stereo and set off for Merida, Yucatan with my daughter as co-driver, to start making knives .... and a new life.