Forging an iron link to the past

Bridgehampton’s Main Street reflects many of society’s advances over the decades.

Light bulbs illuminate air-conditioned boutiques, sport utility vehicles thunder past vacationers clutching white disposable coffee cups and passersby in jean shorts punch invisible keyboards on their smart phones as they amble along the concrete sidewalk.

But set back off the main road, on the grounds of the Corwith House out behind the Bridgehampton Historical Society, the clattering and hammering of a centuries old craft could be heard on a recent Saturday afternoon—a craft that helped give rise to the Industrial Revolution and facilitated America’s growth as a nation.

A makeshift sign outside the wooden shed reads: Blacksmith On Duty.

“This is the same method of heating metal that has been used for a couple thousand years,” says James DeMartis, the resident blacksmith for a day, standing next to the forge where the coal fire blazes, dressed in a work smock, his face smudged with soot. “The blacksmith was the cornerstone of every village.”

Mr. DeMartis will inhabit the Wheelwright shop twice more this summer: on Saturday, July 17, and Saturday, August 21, he will give onlookers a taste of colonial times, making

anything from fireplace pokers to hinges to hooks, all out of steel. Sometimes, he will honor requests—he is often asked by young boys to forge swords, but he usually doesn’t comply.

The Strong Wheelwright Shop was built in the 1870s and used until 1927 by wheelwright George W. Strong, who made wheels for carts, among other goods. The structure was originally located on the Strong Farm at the corner of Town Line Road and Parsonage Lane in Wainscott. The Strong family donated the shop to the Bridgehampton Historical Society in 1962 and shortly after that it was moved to its current Main Street location.

Wheelwrights traditionally made carts, wagons and wheels, but after demand for wooden wheels declined following World War I, the business expanded to the manufacture of other products, including tools.

Mr. DeMartis pointed to a hand-crank blower used to stoke the fire; a newer and more modern version of fireplace bellows. Blacksmiths in the 19th century had to pull down constantly on a rope running along the ceiling that connected to the bellows in order to force air into the device.

The rhythmic process of heating and bending and shaping metal is a profession many might think lives on only in leather bound history books or demonstrations like this one. But Mr. DeMartis discounts that notion.

“When people think it’s a dying craft or art form, it’s not true; it’s very much alive and well,” the blacksmith said.

Just like the horse and buggy evolved into the hybrid automobile, as the needs of society changed, so did the trade. “Now blacksmithing is more of an art form,” Mr. DeMartis said, “a decorative art form.”

Today’s blacksmiths can often be seen creating sculptural art out of metal, crafting decorative posts for gates and designing other household hardware, including furniture and chandeliers.

According to Candace Martens, president of New York State Designer Blacksmiths, the current movement to “go green” has aided the viability of the craft. “Why pay repeatedly for a disposable item when I can make it myself?” she asked rhetorically.

Over the years, blacksmithing has ebbed and flowed.

“To a large extent, the Industrial Age started reducing the requirements for it,” said Ms. Martens’s husband, Brian Martens, a blacksmith for the past five years. “Assembly line production became more and more the norm; the need for it was basically dwindling.”

In the 1950s and ’60s, the craft diminished even further, almost becoming extinct, according to Mr. Martens. But the founding of the Artist Blacksmith’s Association of North America in 1973 and the publication of “The Art of Blacksmithing” by Alex Bealer, he said, helped revive the craft in the public’s eye.

In the United States today, there are upward of 15,000 blacksmiths, according to Peyton Anderson, secretary for the Artist Blacksmith’s Association of North America board of directors. This number includes both amateurs and professional metal workers.

Mr. DeMartis, owner of James DeMartis Metal Studio on Springs Fireplace Road in East Hampton, received his formal education at Long Island University’s C.W. Post campus, where he studied art and sculpture, graduating in 1990.

Courses in metalwork are taught throughout the country, including at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, which offers a “creative blacksmithing” course in both the traditional and modern techniques of the trade. The course draws a wide range of students, including tradesmen, lawyers and teachers.

“Some people come to me and say ‘I just always wanted to learn blacksmithing,’” said instructor Marsha Trattner, who has been teaching the course since 2003. “They come with such an array of backgrounds, it sometimes surprises me. They see decorative iron work and it interests them and they want to apply it for design purposes.”

As Mr. DeMartis continued to work through the steamy afternoon hours on a fireplace poker, his tennis partner, Jaymie Breckenfeld, 40, of East Hampton wandered in with her parents and son Liam, 9, in tow. “I need 18 horseshoes,” she chides, knowing that job usually belongs to a farrier.

“I grew up this way, my dad was a blacksmith,” she said walking over the dusty wood floorboards.

Her father, Russell Hydee, 67, now retired, was a blacksmith for 25 years until his shoulders couldn’t take the wear and tear anymore. “Having done it, this is neat, ” Mr. Hydee said watching Mr. DeMartis at work and reminiscing in the smell of sulphur from the burning coal. He struck up a conversation with the blacksmith.

His wife, Susan Hydee, 66, glanced at the artifacts around the barn dating back to the George Strong days. Her father also worked in the field, having bought, without any prior metalwork experience, the now defunct Essex Forge in Connecticut after passing by it on a trip. “He bought it for the romance of it,” Mrs. Hydee said.

“I hope more people carry on and do this, otherwise there’s not going to be any more blacksmiths,” Mrs. Hydee said.

Her grandson, sitting in a chair near the door, said he wants to maybe be a teacher one day.

Having spent ample time with their feet in history, Ms. Breckenfeld said, “Alright, Dad, tear yourself away,” trying to pull her father back to the fast-paced life of the present day.

Mr. DeMartis keeps at his task, so wrapped up in his work that he absentmindedly delays lunch.

Some of his recent creations will soon be seen on the silver screen in a new adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” directed by Julie Taymor and starring Helen Mirren as a female “Prospera.” The blacksmith made a triangle shaped forge, among other oddities, for a cave scene in the movie.

“Part of what I love about the craft is teaching and perpetuating this art form,” Mr. DeMartis said. “I got into it as an artist, but once I got into it, I realized how there’s a lot to be learned from history.”