When it comes to art, I enjoy finding and pulling unique textures into each piece I create. 'Into the Forge' explores the start to finish process of a blacksmith creating a piece of art with metal stock. Guided by natural light from the studio and the flames and sparks crackling in the forge, I captured the vastly different surfaces and textures present throughout the process of forging, including the 115-year-old anvil present in many of my photos.

While I chose to mostly use black and white in order to enhance the feeling of being in the studio, I did include a few in-color photos to show movement or heat coming off the metal stock.

My work was greatly inspired by Scot Baston and his project, 'The Villiage Blacksmith'. He focuses on many of the technical elements of blacksmithing, just as I do.