Arizona Artist Blacksmith Association

DOVES® program
Doves is a non-profit organization that provides support groups and transitional housing for victims of late life domestic violence and elder abuse for people age 50 and older.  The first annual "Iron in the Desert" event presented in cooperation with Doves and the Arizona Artist Blacksmith Association was held at historic Morningside Ranch in Cave Creek AZ on Saturday October 24, 2009.
 
The event which included a western cookout, live band, cowboy poetry, Navajo textile weaving and of course Blacksmithing.  More than a dozen AABA members demonstrated traditional forging and offered their wares for sale.  Each participating smith donated an item for the silent auction.  Doves volunteers handled all of the purchase transactions and received 25% of the proceeds.  
More than 300 members of the public purchased tickets to attend the event. Tickets ranged in cost from $75 for a single ticket to $500 for a table of 10. 
 
Details on  the creation of the signature raffle piece.
 
We wanted to build something that we could work on together and that others, who couldn’t make the workshops, could contribute to.   Of course, we wanted the piece to represent AABA’s ideal of “Traditional Blacksmithing.  “ We decided to have anyone who wanted, make tiles that were approximately 4” square and that we would make a display structure with 6” square openings.

Jason drew it up in CAD.  Two weeks later we were at the Traditions In Iron studio on a Saturday morning forging all the pieces for the frame from material supplied by Grizz and Jason.

A couple weeks later, folks were back in the studio assembling the frame, which is much easier said than done. We had a struggle getting all the joints tight.  The length of the bars seemed to be different every time we measured and every time we assembled.

Eventually, it did come together nicely. Mo forged some little hanger brackets and supplied drive screws to mount the tiles at the next and final meeting, which was held at Grizzly Iron.

The artists are from Left to Right, Top to Bottom as follows: 

Maurice Hamburger, Rodger LaBrash, Chris Contos

Clark Martinek, Peter Jonasson, Richard Rozinski

Doug Kluender, Ron Kinyon, Mary Ann LaRoche

Sara Harms, Len Ledet, Harold Hilborn

The frame was a group project led by Dan Jennings.

Cathy Smith also participated in the project.

 

Lots of great stuff for sale by AABA members.