Blacksmithing from Start to Finish made by my hands. No molds, jigs or AI.

Blacksmithing has been part of this world for hundreds of years. From swinging a hammer down on an anvil, I will show you the process from start to end.

One must have an idea of what one is going to make. Then look at the object. Look closer and understand what you're looking at. The more you can see, the easier it will be to create form and shape. 

Light your forge and bring it up to the heat you desire. Place a piece of steel within. Light the forge and bring the steel to become red hot. Take out your tong and place it inside the fire, then pull out the pieces of steel you desire. 

No time is wasted. Place the piece of steel against your anvil with a mighty swing of the hammer to strike against the plate of steel. With each strike, it takes a new shape. Slowly turning into the shape you desire. 

Remember if you lay that piece of steel down and it's not in your fire it is still hot regardless of its color. No time to waste sticking that piece of steel back in a fire. You know how to do that. Grab your tongs and put that piece of steel in the fire. You continue doing this, shaping and bending that piece of steel. 

Pretty soon your anvil and your hammer are playing a song. The rhythm of banging and climbing is heard throughout the workshop. The blacksmith cannot stop the shape far from being complete. Bending, twisting, hammering goes on for quite a while. 

The blacksmith takes out his hot brush and begins to knock off all the slag off the steel. Form lays underneath the shape of a mystical quality. Look closely at the object. It looks like a heart. Let's put it back in the fire so we can temper it. Let the forge do its work bringing the object to the color we desire and then drench it into a bucket of water. 

Now a hot brush is needed to complete the task. Back in the fire it goes, relaxing the molecules that sit inside the steel. Take out some beeswax that sits on the counter. You don't need the steel to be red hot but hot enough to open the pores of the steel. Apply the beeswax upon the steel allowing the steel the soak up the wax. Hot brush against the wax and steel bringing to life. The objrvy is created. Do you love it or do you throw it away? I guess it's all about how you feel about what your create

The conclusion of this task always take time. Time to think what you want and who you want it to be. For me it is the blacksmith. I am the one that hammers steel against the anvil forming shapes into works of art. Always creating, always having new beginnings.

Now for a  call to action. Take the first step and ask for help. We are nothing if we don't ask for help from each other. Through the world of sharing, we as a community come together and create new opportunities. In blacksmithing it can take two to three men and women swinging the hammer to form a shape.

Sincerely Tolley Marney

https://www.facebook.com/tolley.marney/videos/2160705660944070/blacksmithing video

Tolley invited to exhibit in Rancho Mirage - November 2023

Where: Rancho Mirage Festival of the Arts

When: Nov 4th and 5th, 2023

Where: Rancho Mirage Community Park and Amphitheater, Rancho Mirage, California.

Visit twenty-eight invited artists at the Rancho Mirage, California, Festival of the Arts. Open air dining, dancing, stage performances and 28 artists round-out a weekend in the beautiful Coachella Valley desert.

Tolley exhibits his latest sculptures, including my first public debut of his “Yellowstone” chess set, 32 bronzes and handmade game table.

One Strike at a Time

Rivulets of sweat slide into my leather arm guard with every stroke of my rounding hammer against the red hot steel bar. With each stroke of my hammer, the hot steel stretches under the blow. With my tongs firmly gripping one end of the piece, I turn it, hit it, turn it, hit it, and again, until the steel is too cool to flow. 

Each sculpture I make comes into being, one strike at a time. I’m not entirely old-school. I use a propane forge so I don’t need to fan coal embers as I work. And I weld at times. 

Raptor with Roses and Fidelity are the sum of my winter and spring. 

Raptor and Roses - Five foot wingspan, I built this sculpture from recycled steel and antique 19th century wood furniture. My wife gave me her collection of early 20th century baking pans for some of the roses. The other roses came from our (former) vintage home electrical panel box.

Contemporary Architectural Steel Door Panels and Breezeway

Tolley creates custom commissioned work for traditional and contemporary decor styles.

Tolley built a breezeway/garden trellis structure for a mid century modern home in Palm Springs, California. The 3-panel structure with an opening in the middle panel is an accessible breezeway structure that will support splayed vine plantings and contribute to the outdoor room effect.

Tolley creates beautiful doors and gates. He recently developed a modern steel and birch woven door panel for a “barn-door” style contemporary home.

Commission Tolley to create a unique and beautiful piece for your home.

Cowboy Artist Life

Remember the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Do you remember your answer? 

For little boys, being a cowboy, space traveler or firefighter often makes the list. I wanted to be a lot of things; a forest ranger, an Indian (at age 6 that seemed possible), a pirate, an explorer.

Looking back at my childhood ideas of adulthood, I see that underlying each life-description was a yearning for the freedom I wanted when I grew up. Freedom to explore, create and experience life on my own terms.

I was thinking about that life list looking at my old photos. During the era of these photos, I was living the cowboy life full-tilt. I cowboyed in Arizona, Colorado  and California and at the time these photos were taken (in the 1980's) I was living at Smoke Tree Stables in Palm Springs, California and working full time as a wrangler. I was a guy in his twenties who wouldn't go anywhere he couldn't take his horse. 

As time went on, I managed to continue some version of that life, raising three sons who have in one way or another lived their expression of the cowboy life. Today I'm still living the dream.

But life has a way of shaping our dreams and adding new ones to the mix. Cowboying led me to farrier work, then black smithing and now sculpting. The freedom that being a cowboy symbolized manifested for me as a life of possibilities has led me to living the creative life of a cowboy artist.

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