I was drawn to blacksmithing from the first encounter, I attended an open day at Oatridge Agriculture College and was allowed to play with fire and an anvil.  

After this, I worked my summer holidays at a local forge in Edinburgh, then I undertook an apprenticeship, then I was a journeyman throughout Europe, and finally a BFA in Metal Art at Gothenburg. I’m currently undertaking an MFA at the same university.  

I use forging techniques to create my work, techniques that I was taught, and that I developed during my traditional apprenticeship. However, within my practice I now seek to push these techniques, or what I like to call ‘traditional values’.  

My aim is to take my material, iron and steel, to its limits. I welcome ‘flaws’ and articulate them within my conceptual ideas.  

My favourite detail of my new body of work is an accumulation of things; the cracks and fissures that run throughout the piece, and the weight and mass.  

For me, the cracks represent this ‘breaking point’ that I’m trying to communicate conceptually, and the weight further drives this idea that steel is strong and unyielding.