Lorelei Sims started her blacksmithing career in 1993 by purchasing a shop in Charleston, Illinois following her art education. She has grown her blacksmithing business by forging functional art pieces. As the best-selling author of "The Backyard Blacksmith" book, Lorelei is well respected throughout the blacksmithing community.
What We Talked About
- The book "The Backyard Blacksmith" is celebrating its 10th year in publication and still the number 1 blacksmithing book on the market!
- Lorelei was inspired by her grandfather and his copper organic looking metalwork. This was her connection to botanical work in metal, hence the subject for the new publication.
- When Lorelei makes botanically inspired metalwork, she first dissects the organic forms such as the flower, the bud, the vine. Then she organizes each piece in an eye pleasing composition.
- "Organic Metalworking" is Lorelei's next publication, similar to a magazine format and size it will concentrate on her floral and organic techniques. This serial publication was released in March of th2016. To get information on how to purchase "Organic Metalworking" visit http://www.blacksmithchic.com/ .
- Queue McMillan is the editor and designer of the Organic Metalworking publication, so she and Lorelei first had to fit all of the content into 3 distinct categories; tools/ equipment, techniques, and projects. So they decided to concentrate on the vine and leaf motif for each of the categories.
- Lorelei remembers when Quarry publications contacted her to write the "Backyard Blacksmith" and the first thing she remembers was thinking… "how hard can it be?". At the time, she was offered a one-time writers fee with no future royalties.
- This first edition of Organic Metalworking was dedicated to Dano Goostree who was a blacksmith. His specialty was adhering copper to the bottom of cookware, which is a lost art. He passed away in 2013.
- The second publication of Organic Metalworking will be about the woodlands and should be released in the next year or so.
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