This week we’re re-airing a favorite episode from last year with Jeffrey Funk, a blacksmith from Bigfork, Montana, who’s been crafting public sculpture and architectural metalwork for over 30 years. Jeffrey is the director of the New Agrarian School, an organization that teaches blacksmithing and other traditional rural crafts.

In this episode, Jeffrey talks about how being interested in everything led to his blacksmithing career and provides some history of the profession. He also brings up how he deals with certain contradictions in his work — like the fact that the backbones of blacksmithing are destructive to the Earth. Justin asks how blacksmithing fits into the context of other themes of local economy, like CSAs or farmers’ markets, and how Jeffrey brings diversity into the New Agrarian School.

Learn more about the New Agrarian School here: https://www.newagrarianschool.org/

Transcript available here.

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