"It’s important to keep any craft or skill set alive especially the skill set of blacksmithing alive because it’s where we come from, it’s part of our heritage, it’s, uh, you know, we live in such a digital world now, everything’s done online, um, you know, there’s a lot of kids that believe, you know, milk comes from the grocery store not from a cow, uh, and, uh, I’m sure everybody’s heard some of those analogies before, uh, but it is very im…important to preserve those traditions and those crafts as we go along because then you lose touch, you lose touch eventually. If no one baked anymore we’d all forget how to, you know, read a recipe or to be able to mix ingredients and things, much the same way if, you know, no one whittled anymore on wood or no one forged anymore, the concepts around understanding how metal moves and what you can do with it and its properties and things like that would ultimately be lost, um, to future generations. So, that’s why it’s very important to keep craft alive."
Roy Adams began forging in 2008 after his wife bought him a forge at a garage sale. He opened his own forging company in 2012 in Dayton, Ohio, which moved to northern Michigan in 2019. Adams specializes in ornamental iron work such as furniture and sculpture. He builds copper vessels and bird baths, steel bowls, home decor items, and floral sculptures. Adams attributes his artistic growth to the blacksmithing community, which offered apprentice opportunities and training courses with well-known smiths. Now himself a practicing master blacksmith, Adams is always seeking new opportunities to teach his craft. Through small group demonstrations, private lessons, and his own Youtube channel, Adams offers blacksmithing lessons that are both infromative and accessible. This outreach has brought Adams an international audience. Adams describes his work as creating "hierloom type pieces, stuff that is gonna be passed down for generations and generations, that will long outlive me."
Roy Adam's Traditions Episode.
Contents of the Collection
- Step-by-step forging demonstrations of a frying skillet
- Detailed shots of a Thor-like sledgehammer
- Images of crafted items including copper bowls, metal roses, bottle openers, decorated locks, fireplace utensils, copper spatula/ladles