David MacDonald Forges Swords, but Loves the Pen

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David MacDonald with a door handle made from iron and some old tramway cable.

LOS LUNAS, NM (04/25/2011)(readMedia)-- During his senior year at the Gilmour Academy near Cleveland, OH, David MacDonald took an art course on a whim.

"I took an art class for a fun thing to do," MacDonald said. While in that class, he had the opportunity to study with a then semi-retired Croatian sculptor named Joseph Turkaly, who MacDonald described as a big man with large hands.

That fun thing to do led to shaping MacDonald's future. He was introduced to working with solid materials in a three-dimensional art form. And he was introduced to this three-dimensional world by a sculptor who did commissioned works for the Brothers of the Holy Cross of Notre Dame, as well as various cities and institutions. Turkaly was a renowned artist who himself studied with master sculptors.

Now, after 30 years as a master blacksmith, MacDonald realizes how important Turkaly's influence is on his career. MacDonald does a lot of specialized work, creating everything from gates, to chandeliers, to furniture, to sculptures. The majority of his pieces are commissioned works ordered by designers or architects.

Anyone interested in a sampling of MacDonald's work will have the opportunity to view it at the UNM-Valencia Fine Arts Gallery through May 10. The gallery is open from 9 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday.

While at Gilmour Academy, Turkaly was working on a 108-inch bronze sculpture of George Washington, which now sits in front of the courthouse in Buffalo, NY. That was 1975-76.

"How cool is it that I got to work with this guy and he was doing this huge statue?" MacDonald asked. "I got an award that year in the class."

MacDonald was a natural at three-dimensional work, but he planned to pursue a business degree at the University of Cincinnati. He did just that for two years, and then transferred to the equestrian program at the University of Findlay in Ohio.

"While I was there, I took up an apprenticeship with a farrier," he said, where he learned the craft of making horseshoes by heating iron and pounding it.

What happened for the next 30 years can be called a career. "I had a business plan," MacDonald said, "and I worked it as a blacksmith and as a horse trainer."

Of the two divisions of his business, he said the blacksmithing has been far more lucrative, but he believes it has only been so because he took business and writing courses.

"That is my advice to anyone who plans on making a career out of art," he said. "I encourage any art student to not just study art but to take business classes and writing classes."

MacDonald has file after file with meticulous notes, blueprints and other materials for each of his clients. He believes that is one reason why his blacksmithing business has paid the bills.

"The pen is mightier than the sword," MacDonald said, "and I make swords."

During his career, MacDonald has studied with master smiths throughout Europe. He received his master blacksmith diploma from a metalworkers' guild in northern France.

He also had the opportunity to work with smiths who were involved with the restoration of the Statue of Liberty, and he also got to study with Francis Whitaker, an American master who brought back Old World blacksmithing techniques from near extinction.

Whitaker was named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1997. His work can be seen at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the former Central Savings Bank of New York, among other places. His obituary appeared in the New York Times, and during his career he never made a horse shoe.

"Iron has a strength no other material has," Whitaker was quoted in the New York Times, "and yet it has a capacity of being light, graceful and beautiful. It has this capacity – but no desire. It will do nothing by itself but resist you. All the desire, and all the knowledge of how to impart this desire to the iron, must come from the smith."

MacDonald can tell you story after story of forging a piece of iron three inches thick into a sculpted piece or hardware, pounding with heavy hammers over an anvil on iron that has been heated to 2500 degrees.

It is not easy work. "When you step back from that work and look in a mirror, you will notice your face is red, burned," he said.

Stop by the Fine Arts Gallery at UNM-Valencia and try to imagine what MacDonald desired while he was pushing with his custom-made chisels and hammers that thick, heated iron. How did he see a dragon sculpture, or a horse's head?

Or how did he forge a door handle from iron and some old tram cable? We all take for granted something as simple as a door handle, but not after you see what MacDonald has forged.