The art of the blacksmith - then and now
Other Columnists
Greenport's dock area is bustling with window-shopping
tourists and residents hurrying to finish errands before the sizzling afternoon
heat overpowers a pleasant summer morning.
John Visser is expecting a few of the passersby to wander into the small
shop just south of Front Street. Those who do won't find much respite from the
heat in the un-air-conditioned building that is a remodeled corncrib storage
barn from the 1870s. Visser is the village blacksmith, and as he turns a
hand-powered blower, the coals in the hearth respond with a red-orange glow,
and the temperature in the forge soon approaches a hellish 3,000 degrees - hot
enough to soften metal.
But those who stop in will catch a glimpse of Americana - a glimpse of a
bygone time when the village blacksmith shop was a center of community
activity. A place where farmers would bring broken pitchforks to be fixed and
homemakers would carry in their favorite Dutch ovens to be repaired.
Visser is well-versed in the history of his vocation - he's a working
farrier as well as the official blacksmith in this place that is a re-creation
of the way things used to be. As he hammers a red-hot horseshoe on an anvil, he
opens a window to the past.
"At the turn of the 20th century," Visser says, "a blacksmith was one of
the most respected positions in the community next to a minister, a
schoolteacher and perhaps a doctor. It was common for a town or village to
offer a blacksmith free housing or a land grant if he would open shop in the
community."
Back then - 100 years ago or more - "smithies," as blacksmiths are called,
kept family farms going by shoeing horses and repairing all manner of equipment
from plows and augers to hand tools. They could make or repair virtually
anything fashioned from metal, whether it was a nail or a sewing needle. And in
harbor communities like Greenport, where shipping was vital to the local
economy, a blacksmith was called upon to service the great whaling and fishing
vessels of the day.
It was that way all across America. From Colonial times, the need for
blacksmiths was such that it was a trade passed down from father to son. But
over time, the work was eclipsed by mechanization and then by the rise of
plastics and computers and the incessant demands of a "throw-away" society
where so many products are easier to replace than repair. A few blacksmiths
changed with the times. The Studebaker brothers, Clement and Henry, for
example, evolved their Indiana blacksmith and wagon-making shop into one of the
country's first major automobile manufacturers. One of Henry Ford's favorite
pastimes as a young man was working as a blacksmith on the family farm on the
outskirts of Detroit.
Long Island mirrored the rest of the country, with many villages boasting
their own smithies. In the late 1800s, Greenport alone had more than a half
dozen blacksmith shops making fittings and implements for shipyards and
fishermen. Only Visser's shop, which is run by the East End Seaport Museum &
Marine Foundation, has survived.
Today, blacksmithing is a mostly unseen part of Long Island - unless, of
course, you own a horse. A horse needs new shoes every six to eight weeks, and
the approximately 50 working farriers on the island are the people who provide
them. But there are also historic re-enactors like Visser as well as artists
who create replicas of old-time pot racks and candlesticks and lamps as well as
specialty hardware and ironwork or who design and repair ornate gates for
estates and other residences. Sometimes, the farrier and the artist are one and
the same.
Gary Werner has spent almost 25 years looking at the hooves of Appaloosas,
thoroughbreds and other breeds. He has about 150 human clients, representing
hundreds and hundreds of horses, and travels to stables across Long Island
carrying a portable forge in the back of his late-model pickup with a license
plate that says it all - FARRIER.
And while Werner remains just that, he has also become an expert in leg and
hoof ailments and is a sought-after speaker at farrier schools and within the
equine health industry.
But there's another side to the 55-year-old Smithtown resident. An artistic
side.
In a garage workshop filled with scrap metal and forging tools, Werner
heats and hammers and molds copper and steel into household items and objets d'
art that bear absolutely no resemblance to horseshoes. He's created a copper
tiki lamp for the patio that looks like a water lily with big, rounded,
green-tinged pads and narrow-petaled flowers. He's transformed garden shovels -
both handles and spades - into interior light fixtures, and replicated
Colonial-era betty lamps with their hinged covers and spouts that hold candle
wicks. His sculptures include a delicate cattail forged from copper with a
tall, graceful stem and willowy leaves.
For now, his art pieces are gifts for friends and relatives as well as
decorative touches on an old wooden shed in his backyard. But he thinks about
selling or auctioning them on eBay - and he thinks about the day when fitting a
1,400- pound horse for new shoes will be too much for an aging farrier. "Maybe
in the future," he says of turning his sideline into a commercial enterprise.
"I won't be able to handle horses forever."
When that time comes, Werner won't be alone. Smithies who have drifted away
from horse-and-hoof care find demand for their decorative household wares
through such groups as the Georgia-based Artist-Blacksmith's Association of
North America. The group's approximately 4,500 members nationwide make gates,
grilles, handrails, candelabras, chandeliers and weather vanes. The difference
between past and present, according to Charles Orlando, a member from upstate
Belmont, is that in the old days, there was no place else to get such items.
Now, he said, "people don't necessarily need these things, but they really want
them."
At 72, Orlando - who went from full-time farrier to full-time ornamental
blacksmith about 16 years ago - is a one-man forging business, creating
everything from glass-top coffee tables to plant hangers and stands.
"Blacksmiths who create these types of things pride themselves on the fact that
it's custom work," Orlando said. "It's more about art and making a
one-of-a-kind piece for a customer."
Back in Greenport, Visser continues his history lesson and hands visitors
old horseshoes as souvenirs. He shows off some of the household items he's
forged - dinner bells, coat racks and iron hooks that look as if they were
created in another era. They hang on the wall not far from a stack of faded
ledgers from the 1920s that belonged to Paul Nossolik, who operated The Village
Blacksmith for more than a half-century until he was in his 80s. Greenport's
last full-time blacksmith retired in 1987 and died in 1993 at the age of 95.
That same year, the original building collapsed during a snowstorm, but
Otto Schoenstein, a former construction supervisor from East Marion who fondly
remembered the shop and the old blacksmith, joined with other volunteers and
found and remodeled the barn, then moved it to Greenport in 1999.
A glance through the ledgers spanning 1924 to 1927 reveals that Nossolik
charged $1.25 for a meat hook he made for a certain S.J. Bennett and 50 cents
for the chain he fixed for a George Macara. He charged one customer $2 for
making new eyebolts, and yet another customer $1.75 for a new ring on a barrel.
"People couldn't just buy these things," Visser reminds a visitor. "Items
like farm implements and hand tools were vital."
A couple enters the shop as Visser is talking, but in a flash he redirects
his attention to them. They've come to inquire if the old candelabra they've
brought in can be copied.
And at that moment, the village blacksmith is swept back in time.
IRENE VIRAG is on vacation.
Her column will return on Sept. 15. Log on to www.newsday.com/irene to
read her previous home and garden columns.
FARRIER FACTS
The Village Blacksmith Shop is open Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., through
mid-September. It's located near the village dock in Greenport, on the east
side of Mitchell Park. For information, call 631-477-2100.
For more details on blacksmithing, check the following Web sites:
www.ABANA.org
The Artist-Blacksmith's Asso- ciation of North America
www.americanfarriers.org American Farrier's
Association
www.wernersfarrierservice .com
Gary Werner's Farrier Service
www.vet.cornell.edu/ education/farrier.htm
The farrier courses at
Cornell University
www.orlandoforge.com Charles Orlando's one-man forging service
- Gary Dymski
