Loew:
It also seems to take us back in time to a place called Badger Village Blacksmithing. Steve Hackbarth chose the name for his business in part to evoke a famous Longfellow poem, “The Village Blacksmith.” Producer Andy Soth uses lines from that poem along with original guitar music performed by Hackbarth to create this portrait of an artist who takes a very philosophical view of his craft.

Andy Soth:
Under a spreading chestnut tree the village smithy stands. The smith, a mighty man is he with large and sinewy hands.

Steve Hackbarth:
A smith a mighty man is he with large and sinewy. That sounds pretty good to me.

Soth:
His hair is crisp and black and long. His face is like the tan. His brow is wet with honest sweat, he earns whatever he can.

Hackbarth:
Blacksmithing is a noisy kind of physical profession. It is an athletic endeavor. You have to be pounding on iron or forming it or shaping it in some way, shape or form.

Soth:
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge with measured beat and swell. Like the sexton ringing the village bell when the evening sun is low.

Hackbarth:
So it's not a profession that allows itself a lot of communication. The blacksmith is kind of trapped within that silence of noise. So he ends up being a philosopher of sorts.
Hackbarth:
There are many spiritual parallels in blacksmithing. The idea of shaping something. Often if we look at ourselves as the iron that's being shaped, I often look at the fact that it can't be a pleasant process for the iron to be heated up and pounded on. All of us go through certain trials in our lives in relation to the sorrow and pain that is existing in this world and, you know, it shapes us. Some people it shapes differently than others.

Soth:
Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, onward in life he goes.

Hackbarth:
Yeah, I couldn't rescue that one.

Hackbarth:
Blacksmithing is about learning how to fail and be okay with failing because you have to fail a lot of times before you get it right. And it's being willing to go through that failure and go through that disappointment and to get to the other side of it. I find the same experience is true with my guitar playing.

Hackbarth:
The material that I compose on guitar is built with small phrases and I try to put stuff together so that it makes the composition and blacksmithing to come up with a finished project is the same, where you build small items to make a final piece.

Soth:
Each morning sees some task begin, each evening sees it close. Something attempted, something done, has earned a night's repose.

Hackbarth:
As a perfectionist I want everything to be just right. When you get to a point on a project you need to stop and you need to move on. Contentment to a certain extent is learning how to work the material but then also learning when to stop working it.

Soth:
Thanks, thanks to thee my worthy friend for the lesson thou has taught. Thus at the flaming forge of life our fortunes must be wrought.  Thus on its sounding anvil shape each burning deed and thought.

Loew:
You can go to our website at wpt.org/InWisconsin to see more of Hackbarth’s work. You can also find more information about all of our reports from this week.