The Analogs is stories about people who make things by hand — and what those things tell us about those people.
SAM DINGMAN: On a quiet side street in Tempe, behind a nondescript garage door, in a workshop stuffed with anvils, hammers and steel bars, a white-haired man with a handlebar mustache lights a fire in a forging oven.
He’s wearing suspenders, jeans, work boots and a brace on his wrist.
RICHARD CONNOLLY: People have asked me to teach them how to make a knife. And I tell them: I’ll teach you how to move metal. What you make out of it is immaterial.
DINGMAN: This is Richard Connolly — he’s originally from Tucson, but he’s lived most of his life in the mountain town of Patagonia, Arizona. Elevation: 4,000 feet. Population: 804.
CONNOLLY: … And that’s where I started blacksmithing.
DINGMAN: Richard’s been a blacksmith for over 50 years. He started his career as an auto mechanic.
CONNOLLY: And in 1973 there was a huge gas shortage, and I got laid off from my job as a mechanic. So I was just looking for work, and my friend had some wagons to restore. ... So I went down and I looked at his shop, and when I walked in the door I knew that I was gonna be there as long as I possibly could.
DINGMAN: These wagons his friend was working on — they were from the 1800’s. The kind horses pull. Richard found himself fascinated by how well they still worked — the sturdiness of the century-old wheel casings and hinges. He knew right away he was never going back to the auto shop.
CONNOLLY: I was not happy there. And once I got into blacksmithing, that changed.
DINGMAN: Richard started learning how move metal. Heating it up to 2,000 degrees until it folds like molding clay, laying it on an anvil, and using hammers to shape it into coat hooks, gates and fireplace pokers.
He met an older blacksmith who seemingly knew how to make anything.
CONNOLLY: He was 80 years old. So he’d take me over to his house at night, and we’d ... go to the shop and build ... and he would stand there and show me what to do. The most important thing he taught me is how to swing a hammer.
DINGMAN: Richard came to realize that what the old man was really showing him is that blacksmithing isn’t about what you make. It’s about how you make it. When you look down at the glowing orange metal on the anvil, don’t try to picture what it’s eventually going to become.
CONNOLLY: As I’m looking at it I’m not thinking this is a digging bar, or this is a piece of a gate. It’s just something that’s there and I know what to do with it. And it’s just the doing of it.
DINGMAN: Before long, Richard opened his own blacksmith shop in Patagonia. He spent countless hours there — literally.
CONNOLLY: When I really get into work, and doing everything else, the rest of the world just goes away. It’s just me and the fire and the anvil. And it’s peaceful. People don’t think that swinging a hammer and hitting things would be peaceful. But it is. And I’ll lose myself. I’ll stand around all day and I’ll realize it’s 4 o’clock and I’ve been here all day and I haven’t eaten lunch. And it’s not a bad feeling at all.
DINGMAN: One day, a corporate sales rep named David Goodman, who was vacationing in Patagonia, came into Richard’s shop.
David was staying in an Airbnb in town, and he’d bought a package that included a blacksmithing class with Richard. David tried to make a knife, and the blade came out crooked.
CONNOLLY: The product was terrible. But what I found was that I love the work of it. I love the activity of blacksmithing. And I knew that even if the products keep coming out terrible, I’m still going to love the physical work of it.
DINGMAN: Richard made one thing particularly clear to David: don’t swing the hammer too hard.
CONNOLLY: One of the first things I realized was counter-intuitive is the harder you strike, the looser you have to hold the hammer. Because these anvils have maybe around 90% rebound sometimes. So the harder you strike, the harder it’s going to bounce up. ... It was Richard who actually taught me how to work loose — it turned the blacksmithing activity into a mindfulness meditation.
DINGMAN: “Work loose.” The phrase stuck with David, so much so that he eventually quit his corporate job, and opened a blacksmithing shop of his own, here in Tempe — the one on the quiet side street.
It’s called Iron Rhino Forge, and recently, he invited Richard down from Patagonia to teach a workshop. Things have been a little rough in the blacksmith business.
CONNOLLY: Now unfortunately I did lose my shop about four years ago — I’d been in that shop 22 years, but I was renting, and the people sold the property, so I had to leave.
And I’m in the process now of finishing up a new shop and getting ready to set up and start over again. So I’ve been out of work the last four years, and it’s not an easy thing to walk away from someone you love. Someone? Something you love, and see my all my tools under tarps out in the rain. It’s painful.
DINGMAN: But even after 50 years, Richard can’t wait to get the new shop up and running.
CONNOLLY: Oh I think I got another 15, maybe 20 years in me.
DINGMAN: In the meantime, Richard’s happy to hang out at Iron Rhino with David. They love to fire up the forge and talk shop.
CONNOLLY: If you swing a hammer from like 2 feet down to the anvil, you get a certain amount of pressure. If you raise it up to 4 feet and drop it, you actually — it’s a mathematical thing — you get eight times the amount of force when it hits.
DAVID GOODMAN: We’re gonna stand very close to the work. Lift it and drop it — it’s not slamming down, we’re not punching down hard. We’re lifting and dropping and lifting and dropping ...
CONNOLLY: OK, stand up straight, don’t lock your legs, lift that hammer up!
GOODMAN: To me, blacksmithing is very much a partnership with your tools and materials. You get intimate with your tools and materials. If the steel cools down a little bit, and you’re trying to make a hook, it doesn’t bend the same way. You’re getting feedback.
... If I drop my hammer on the steel, and it gives me an outcome that’s not what I wanted, the steel is saying based on what you’ve given me, here’s what I can give you. If you want something different, change what you give me, and I’ll give you something different as well. The question is can you read what this looks like — sorry, i get really excited about this.
CONNOLLY: The blacksmith community that I’ve known over the years are thrilled to share what they know with someone who’s interested. And it’s easy to know someone who just is curious, opposed to someone who’s really interested. What’s the difference? A look in their eyes. You can tell!
GOODMAN: I struggle going to friends houses and parties and there’s nobody to talk about blacksmithing there. My life used to be managing my ADHD in a corporate job, in corporate sales. ... Now, most of my day is spent inside my hyperfocus, and when I have to step outside of that, it feels weird to realize that other people didn’t just experience all that, because it’s really intense. Living within your hyperfocus is insanely productive, but it’s a really intense way to live.
CONNOLLY: I realized at some point in my career that what I've learned most out of many years of forge work is patience. Things don’t happen instantly — you have to be willing to stick with it. And it’s … a lot of the time you’re making one piece, you’re going to spend a week or two making one piece. But it’s only a week or two.
GOODMAN: I had an opportunity to work with a Japanese blacksmith, I think 53rd generation blacksmith from Japan. That’s 800 something years. And — very old armor making family in Japan. And I asked him what are the most fundamental skills in your craft? And he said, “It’s the heart to never stop what you’re doing.”
DINGMAN: Does it feel like an identity to either of you?
GOODMAN: Absolutely.
CONNOLLY: Woosh. Yes. I’d have to say so.
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The Analogs is a series of stories about people who make things by hand — and what those things tell us about those people. -
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