Into the fire
Blacksmith forging new directions in art and furniture.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Hear the word “blacksmith,” and you probably think about a 60-year-old man with a white beard and glasses making horseshoes at Silver Dollar City. That’s precisely why most people who meet Dave Frazier, a 29-year-old blacksmith in Bigelow, are taken by surprise.
But don’t let his youth fool you: Frazier is making a name for himself as one of the most talented blacksmiths in Arkansas and the South. He’s created everything from banisters to chandeliers to gates, turning blacksmithing into more than what most people expect.
“I think blacksmithing is so interesting because it’s an art, and there is a science to it,” Frazier said. “The forge is burning at 3,000 degrees, and you’ve got 20 seconds to do what you’re going to do before [the metal’s] too cold.”
Frazier spent his early years in Roland. His father worked for Pinnacle Mountain State Park, and his family lived in a house on the grounds.
“I was probably 14 before I realized not everybody had a backyard of 2,000 plus acres,” he said.
In college, Frazier dabbled with engineering before focusing his attention on earning a degree in communications. By his third year of college, he was well on his way to graduation — and a steady, secure job in his chosen field.
His future took a turn when Frazier’s aunt signed him up — without telling him — to do a blacksmith demonstration at the annual Pinnacle Mountain Rendezvous. Never mind that he had never forged a single thing in his life.
“I told her, ‘I don’t know anything about how to do that,’” he said.
His aunt wouldn’t relent, though. Before he knew it, Frazier was the proud owner of a forge, had inherited his great-grandfather’s anvil and was enrolled in a blacksmithing “crash course” at the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View.
And he actually enjoyed it.
“You grow up, and your mom told you, ‘Don’t play with fire, don’t get dirty, don’t make a lot of noise.’ And for the first time in your life, you were encouraged to do [that],” he said.
Frazier said his demonstration at Pinnacle Mountain Rendezvous wasn’t glitch-free. But he got through it with a lot of encouragement. Six months later, the Ozark Folk Center needed a blacksmith’s apprentice. So they called Frazier.
Thus began Frazier’s new weekend routine. He woke up at 4 a.m. on Saturday, drove four hours to Mountain View, worked until late in the evening, and then either drove the four hours back to school or spent the night and worked the next day, too. Frazier said that he once compared the amount of money he spent on gas to how much he was getting paid for his work, and he was losing money every time he made the trip. But the satisfaction he derived from hammering away at the anvil more than made up for that.
“I realized it was the happiest I’d ever been,” he said.
When graduation came, Frazier said he had a few options. He had been approached about a marketing job in which he would be making a six-figure salary within just a few years. His pastor told him he should consider preaching. Then, of course, there was blacksmithing, the path he chose.
It’s been five years since Frazier started working out of his shop in Bigelow. He started out primarily doing construction jobs, but now he enjoys making smaller commissioned pieces, too.
Gary Goodwin of Ferndale and his wife Andrea met Frazier about four or five years ago. Goodwin said he had taken a picture of an ornate ironwork fireplace at a Ritz-Carlton hotel in Colorado, and Frazier was able to re-create it for the couple’s home. But Goodwin said it’s not just Frazier’s talent that sets him apart.
“Everything he does, we’re extremely pleased with,” Goodwin said. “He’s an above-and-beyond kind of person. He very definitely aims to please. He is very talented.”
And for Frazier, the best part of the job is pushing the boundaries of his art.
“It’s having two or three days to think about something I want to make,” he said. “All my other stuff is done, and this is where I’m going to be. There’s no pressure to get it done. You lose track of time, and it’s awesome.”
And, he said, there’s nothing like seeing his customers genuinely satisfied with a piece.
“You can tell when somebody is piling it on, but whenever somebody looks at it and they’re like, ‘I had no idea it was going to look like that,’ it’s great.”
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