Young Artist in the Durango Community

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I’m Ben Rogers.

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I’m 19 years old.

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I’m living in Durango, Colorado right now.

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And I’m a blacksmith and metalworkers.

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The main thing that I’m doing right now.

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We are sitting in the maker lab right now,

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which is where I do all of my work out of.

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It’s a really awesome

space, member driven.

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Allows a pretty sweet opportunity

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for anybody who doesn’t have access

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to a shop like this of their

own to come use this space.

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So we’re sitting in the

metal shop right now,

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which is where I spend most of my time.

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My main bread and butter,

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I guess I could say, is

the forge and the anvil.

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These are like my

definitely favorite tools

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to use in this whole space.

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And that’s how I move

the bulk of the metal.

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And then a lot of the

refining work I do with files,

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some of the grinders.

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The only teacher I’ve had is the internet

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and trial and error.

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I’ve pretty much learned it all on my own,

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which has been a super,

super fun and rewarding.

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I like using reclaimed

materials for a lot of reasons.

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I love the features that

some pieces will have,

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I love the sustainability aspect of it

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and the price is very, very nice.

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You can get pretty

infinite amount of metal

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out of things like leaf

springs from a car or coils.

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And most of the time you

can get that for free.

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Exotic woods can be pretty

unsustainable to like harvest,

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but if I can get little chunks of it

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from projects that other

people have done secondhand,

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what most people would see as trash,

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it’s pretty cool to be able to turn those

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into accent pieces on a knife

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or on any other project I’m working on.

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My main goal is just

dialing in my like craft.

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Cause as much as I want to get

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a ton of pieces into people’s

hands as fast as possible,

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I’m really trying to focus on

the basis of this is the craft

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and is all the details

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and hand work that goes into all of it.

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So the goal is just to keep

learning piece by piece

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and keep enjoying it because I do.

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This is such a playful space for me.

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Just keep learning and loving the process.

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