by Jim Weaver

he village blacksmith was an important fixture in community life in early America. He was the auto mechanic of his day and kept horse-drawn transportation moving. But when cars and trucks replaced buggies and wagons, the blacksmith largely disappeared. Today, however, blacksmithing is once again being recognized as an important craft medium.

oe Brown was born and raised in central Tennessee. After four years in the Navy, he returned home and began working at a Nissan auto plant in its industrial truck maintenance shop. Brown spent 16 years there, the last five years as manager. But Brown didn’t care much for corporate management. “I wanted to do something with my hands,” he says. He was also searching for something he could do at home (Brown and his wife, Kerry, home school their four children). Brown recalls seeing a program on public television about a man who used a wheelbarrow as a forge and made small items from iron. “I can do that,” he recalls thinking. “That’s what I want to do.”

More examples of Brown’s work.

n 1994, Brown began studying blacksmithing with a county blacksmith association and later at the Appalachian Center for the Arts. By 1998, he was ready to leave his job with Nissan to become a full-time craft artist and opened Brown View Forge in Readyville, Tenn. “It was more a matter of faith than something practical,” he says about making blacksmithing his full-time career. Brown had experienced some modest success at area craft shows since 1997 and he felt sufficiently confident he could be successful as a craft artist. Since then, Brown says that he’s been “consistently busy.” “Most of my work comes from word-of-mouth. You can never underestimate the importance of satisfied customers.”

Brown participates in six juried regional craft fairs each year. “I sell a few small pieces, but mostly I just show people photos of my various projects and hand out my business cards,” he says. “I spend a lot of time talking with people explaining the difference between handmade and manufactured — the artistic skill and effort that goes into a one-of-a-kind handmade item verses something stamped out by a machine.”

Another view of Brown at work.

Brown also participates in annual craft artist studio tours in the Murfreesboro area. “Collectors and others interested in crafts are welcome to visit various studios and see the artists at work.” he explains. “I’ve made a number of good contacts through this program.” Brown likes people to see his work in a home setting. He recently completed an ornamental iron staircase for a Nashville home that features leafy vines running along and through the railing supports. He also made four hammered iron table frames for a Nashville school.

t 44 years of age, Brown is a strong healthy man who can swing a hammer for many hours, but he’s always concerned about treating his body right. “I don’t swing a hammer all day every day,” he says. “There’s always plenty of other work that needs to be done. It’s always hot working at a forge. On a hot summer day temperatures can be 140 degrees. Even in the studio the temperature reaches 100 plus. I drink lots of water, keep several fans running, and take periodic breaks. If my children didn’t need to eat in the summer, I’d take the summer off.”

Brown has also discovered that several sets of hands are better than just one when it comes to running a successful crafts business. “My wife Kerry and our older children are often called on to help out.” Married to Brown since 1988, Kerry Brown not only runs the household and home schools their children, but also handles the business side of the blacksmithing operation. “Kerry is a vital part of our business and essential to my continuing success,” he says. “It doesn’t hurt that she used to work at a bank.”

The Browns’ home contains many examples of Joe Brown’s work from door hinges and lamp fixtures to porch railings and garden sculpture. “I recently made an iron bed for Kerry,” he says, “something she has wanted for a number of years.”

Brown tells a story of visiting someone’s home and seeing an iron candleholder. Attracted to it, he soon realized it was one of his. “Things look different, better, in a home setting,” he says. “That’s one of the problems with photographs and craft shows. They often don’t present the work to its best advantage.”

Brown’s work is not only appropriate for indoors, he also makes several lines of work for gardens. “People often don’t appreciate the things they can do in their own backyard to make it more interesting and beautiful.” To that end, Brown creates trellises and arbors for plants with vines and modern lawn and garden sculpture of both fabricated and forged iron. At a Secret Garden Tour in nearby Murfreesboro last spring, Brown created several garden sculptures for the event. One of his sculptures was recently selected for exhibit at the Nashville International Airport. Brown also created a number of “Tennessee Iris” sculptures for the Nashville Iris Society as decoration for a gazebo.

“Working as a craft artist is always a challenge,” Brown says, “but I have a great deal of confidence in my ability to produce quality work that people are interested in buying.”

Jim Weaver is a Pennsylvania-based free-lance writer.

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