This visual arts unit was written for students in grade 8. It is inspired by the artistic process of the master blacksmith Samuel Yellin. I teach K-8 in New Haven, Connecticut, using the languages of English and Spanish at a Title I school. The topic of blacksmithing is a way to bridge different cultures within the classroom. The anchors of this unit are drawing and grit to revise artwork. Students will iterate drawing designs before the development of 3D artworks inspired by Yellin. Tools in a blacksmith’s workshop are sized to specific tasks. Drawing is a tool Yellin used that has an important purpose.1 For example, he uses early drawings to progress through the development of a project to final drawings.2 According to a biography of Yellin, he often sketched his ideas.3 The material of wrought iron was very important to Yellin’s working process which included the careful documentation of his work, drawings, writing and photographs.4 Students will be encouraged to revise and add to artworks within the unit. Students will strengthen their observational skills from analyzing objects and construct artworks with new materials after making preparatory drawings. Students will be introduced to Yellin’s process of blacksmithing and bridge it to other cultural practices.
Historically, New Haven was a manufacturing city. New Haven also has a history as a port city and our neighborhood school is located in an urban environment near the highway to New York City. While driving toward our school this spring, I noticed the claw of a crane tractor pick up scrap metal from cars. This metal industrial tool led to a drawing lesson for students in grades 3 – 6. In the lesson students drew themselves seated in control of this powerful crane machine that can grab heavy metal materials. Students wrote words in a pile in front of the crane drawing. Then students chose their favorite word to be written inside of the claw suspended in the air. Other teachers have taken students on field trips to the Eli Whitney Museum in New Haven. At that museum students learned about manufacturing locally, railways, and the impact of the invention of the cotton gin.
Teaching about blacksmithing is an opportunity to expand student’s understanding of art to bridge global cultural differences through material culture. Researching blacksmithing has caused me to find unexpected cultural connections. For example, the New Haven Museum’s exhibition “Amistad: Retold” has enriched the development of this unit. The blacksmith, abolitionist, and escaped fugitive slave James W.C. Pennington advocated for members of the Amistad during their trial in New Haven. His resolve and ‘mechanical skill’ helped him escape enslavement.5
Material objects produced from the blacksmithing process are influenced by the environment. We live in an age of artificial intelligence where the formation of artworks and ideas is being automated. Through this unit students will begin to confront these new challenges with first-hand learning experiences that change their relationship to material objects beyond this technology. In the region between Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia the Dan spirit-mask, which has iron components made of hairpins and blades, functions as an embodiment of spirits.6 These might be compared to Danilov Russian bells that when rung sound like they are alive.7
In April 2018, I found a spear in the home of my grandfather, Omwami Musa Mukooza. It was as tall as myself and remained in Uganda where it belonged with family. I am a member of the Ente Clan, a royal blacksmithing clan from the Buganda Kingdom in Uganda, Africa.8 There is a Baganda folktale about a blacksmith named Walukagga who was so clever he was asked to accomplish a virtuosic task by the Kabaka (King) to create a person made of iron.9 Fearful for his life Walukagga dreaded failure but agreed to what was asked. The task was to create a real person in his workshop for the Kabaka made from iron. A hare which Walukagga had released from a trap returned the favor by giving him counsel that helped him escape a bad fate. The hare advised him to ask for “four huge pots of human tears and four pots of ash of human hair,” in order to accomplish this formidable task.10 For fear of being tortured in the process of being turned into the material needed for this creation, all of the servants ran away. As a result the Kabaka let the blacksmith go without punishment. Blacksmiths in many cultural contexts have connections to practical purposes and divine or spiritual realms as well. In the case of the Buganda Kingdom, blacksmiths were a protected class that could not be executed.
Figure 1, My grandfather’s spear, photo taken by Kasalina Maliamu Nabakooza in April 2018
