Beginning a new chapter

Sometimes the best way to challenge or improve oneself is to make a fresh start, even if it is something small. The heavy three-armed candelabra from a recent YouTube video is just such a fresh start for me. It represents a step up in the style and difficulty of work I want to produce here at Black Bear Forge.

After I completed the candelabra, several people asked if it was for sale. While no, this one is not for sale because somebody won’t part with it, I do intend to make others in a similar style. These larger, more time-consuming pieces will naturally demand higher prices. The old Etsy shop just doesn’t seem like the place to showcase higher-quality work and I want to close it, or at least to downscale it. Etsy was, and in many ways still is, convenient, but it seems to be going downhill. Getting away from Etsy necessitates a whole new website where I can present things the way I think they should be presented and not have to deal with Etsy complications.

These are small changes but they feel like the beginning of a new chapter in my life as a blacksmith, with higher-quality work both for customer sales as well as for the YouTube videos. I still plan to maintain a variety of topics on YouTube, but with more videos highlighting those little extra touches that take a forged object from commonplace to something distinctive.