Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Words to live by


Furnace. Coal. Fire. Iron everywhere: hammers, hooks, nails, chains, scraps...The blacksmith shop. "The earliest mention of a blacksmith is in Genesis, Chapter 4", says Chip Sowalski, the blacksmith.  His favorite things to make are spikes: "Representations of Roman-era spikes that were used to crucify the Son of God". He holds one up.



So I ask Chip:
-Do you have a saying or your own wisdom of the trade?
-Yes! Get it hot and hit it. 
He chuckles.

There's pretty much the same saying in Russian I grew up with: 
"Kуй железо пока горячо" / "Forge the iron while it's hot". 
And there's my favorite iteration of it, as sung by a favorite Russian band "Вежливый Отказ": 
"Эй, кузнец, Kуй железо, пока мы ещё горячи" /  
/ "Hey, blacksmith, Forge the iron while we're still hot"


2 comments:

  1. Love, love, love it! When I look at your drawings, I can't believe we were drawing the same guy. It's amazing, isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amazing indeed. There's an explanation: to quote Ronnie, "it's called Personality". Thank you, Audrey!

    ReplyDelete