The challenge of sculpting a human in the fire with a hammer. The mechanics of it. It was always in the back of my mind. I would draw people. People in the park, at home, in the airport. Copying what I saw with a pencil. Forging was different. Forging by ear. Forging from memory. What I end up with does not come from the surface of my awareness. When I draw, it is just me and the pencil. When I forge, the steel is adding its influence. Forging steel is like forming clay but it is much tougher and hotter. I cannot touch the steel. I have to make tools to shape it. It has its own agenda. Somehow, I end up with this separation of mind and body. This reaching. The figure is bound by the medium but reaching nontheless.

Reaching