The Ukrainian Gate
Project

13 Blacksmiths Forge for a Cause

After hearing about an award-winning Ukrainian blacksmith who left his anvil to fight against the Russian invasion, a group of Ontario blacksmiths collaboratively created a forged work of art to help support this blacksmith, his wife and their two children.

This ambitious undertaking took hundreds of hours of voluntary work from 13 artist blacksmiths and metalworkers. Funds raised from the sale of the gate will go directly to supporting this Ukrainian family. It will be available for purchase early 2024.

The Story Behind the Gate

“I had the pleasure of being introduced to a Ukrainian refugee who arrived here in Ontario. Irina and her two daughters are looking to re-establish themselves in my area, and I decided to help them do just that. Irina is a talented designer of ironwork, and her husband is a blacksmith, which gave me the idea of building a gate of her design to raise funds for her and her family. Luckily I am not the only crazy blacksmith I know, so I reached out to a few other smiths to join in on the journey.”

- Robb Martin, Thak Ironworks

We met on April 15th 2023 at Two Smiths in Kitchener to develop a strategy, and each smith left with a full-scale drawing and their assigned element. During our meeting, everyone got to meet Irina, who, through translation, explained the concept to us:

“Most of us live our lives recklessly while we are young. Time seems to pass extremely slowly. We try to speed up our lives, in the eagerness to become adults. After a certain age things change and we begin to wish time would slow, as there are so many things left to do; to live; to experience. We try to achieve as many goals as possible, so that we can relax and enjoy our gains during our retirement.

My life had been a sprint: Running family business, creating projects, interacting with clients, meeting deadlines, managing personnel and production, all while being a mother of two kids. 24 hours seemed to be not enough.

It was like that… up to a certain moment that has divided my life into 2 chapters.

However, I am not in my second chapter yet. I feel like I am stuck somewhere between my old life and the new. It's like I'm in slow motion, falling down a cliff. Left the ground, but did not touch the water yet. Now I am observing the world from inside the bubble, as if I have sunk into another dimension, where time does not exist.

I have depicted my recent life experience in this design: one side of the clock-face has no numbers on it, and another side is torn, which metaphorically represents this challenging period of my life. Of anyone's life.

The steampunk elements add to the idea of the alternative reality while the forged elements on the top and in the bottom remain balanced and sophisticated to represent the beauty and harmony of life itself as it goes on.”

“I feel like I am stuck somewhere between my old life and the new. It’s like I’m in slow motion, falling down a cliff.”

— Irina

Participating Blacksmiths

Ryan Belanger is an artist blacksmith and mason who's located south of London, Ontario, in the small town of Aylmer. He operates under the name True North Forge and has been studying and practising blacksmithing for 7 years. Wrought ironwork and tool making is what he enjoys most, while working at the anvil.

@Truenorthforge
FB: Ryan Belanger

Douglas Morlock is a professional blacksmith. His work draws on traditional forging methods, early 20th century art movements and the natural world. Producing a wide range of metalwork from his shop in Warkworth, ON, Morlock is Evangelical on blacksmithing as both a superior craft and as a conduit for re-humanizing our post-industrial society. He devotes much time to teaching, writing and lecturing about blacksmithing to anyone he can catch.
www.morlockblacksmith.com
@douglas_morlock_blacksmith

After 17 years in the Canadian armed forces Shane took up blacksmithing in January 2019. Shane attended Haliburton School of Art and Design’s artist blacksmithing program in 2021. Upon graduation he moved back to petawawa where he has worked full time as an artist blacksmith since. 2024 will see Shane and another local blacksmith open a shop in pembroke Ontario.

https://www.forgedincanada.ca
@stackand_pole_ironworks

Aimie Botelho’s practice began with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Education. Following university, she pursued an apprenticeship as a blacksmith. She is currently a full-time blacksmith at Two Smiths and an instructor in Fleming College’s Artist Blacksmith Program. She has been forging for over 10 years, and loves sharing her passion for art and metal through teaching.
www.aimiebotelho.com
@aimiebotelho

Lloyd Johnston has had a long career in blacksmithing adventures - close to 50+ years . His main interest has and is in historical aspects of the trade, with his work being focused on preservation. His forgings can be found in many museums and historic sites in Canada and the U.S.A., where he has also done consulting on blacksmithing projects.

In his spare time he amuses himself and tortures a few friends by playing the fiddle.

Piper Yorke fell into blacksmithing during a high school co-op placement at Two Smiths. She is currently completing a Visual and Creative Arts Diploma at Haliburton School of Art and Design.

Zac is a Toronto-based artist with 20 years of metalworking experience in various industries, from automotive repair to structural & architectural welding to blacksmithing. His focus is on medium to large scale sculpture and architectural pieces.

www.carboniron.ca
@carbon.and.iron

David is a part-time blacksmith working in Guelph who creates custom, traditional, hand-crafted functional art. David teaches and gives public demonstrations throughout the year. A teller of bad jokes and stories of dubious authenticity, with copious amounts of real information buried in and between.

www.fireswordforge.com

Mark is a self-taught artist blacksmith, who began to explore forging metal in 1995. He made a career transition to full time smith in 2007. Originally from Toronto, he is now established near Uxbridge where he operates Sparks Will Fly Forge. The diverse scope of his work can be found in public and private collections locally and abroad. Including public art installations in Richmond Hill, Pickering, Ajax, and Toronto.

sparkswillflyforge.ca
https://www.instagram.com/sparkswillflyforge/

A graduate from University of Waterloo, Sandra established a full-time blacksmithing practice in 1993. Seven years later she founded Two Smiths, a design and prototyping studio that develops and builds sculptures, functional objects and architectural features in forged steel, hammered copper and bronze for both private and public spaces. Sandra has lectured, taught and worked on projects across Canada, and internationally in Belgium, France, Australia and the United States.
www.twosmiths.ca
@twosmiths.ca

Robb Martin, who is also occasionally known as Thak, began his career in blacksmithing as a teenager. His early influences included an interest in medieval and classical armour. This influence evolved into a very sculptural approach to blacksmithing, combining traditional forgework, sheet metal techniques, and use of modern metal working technologies, to create a distinctive artistic style of work.

www.thak.ca
@thakironworks

Since my retirement I have taken up Black- and Coppersmithing as a Hobby. I joined Ontario Artist Blacksmith Association (OABA) in 1992, took a couple courses and learned from other Blacksmiths at our monthly meetings. Taking a cold piece of iron, sticking it into a hot coal fire (up to 1300degrees Celsius), getting it red hot and hammering it into a functional object or sculpture - wherever my imagination takes it - gives me great satisfaction. It was a privilege to work on the Ukrainian gate project with very skilled Blacksmith from our Artist Blacksmith Association.

Forging the Gate

These photos were taken in many shops across Ontario. Each blacksmith worked from a scaled drawing of the gate, and then brought their piece to Thak Ironworks, where the final gate was assembled.