Blacksmith Courses with Uri Hofi Set for Winter Session at Center for Metal Arts

The Center for Metal Arts announces the annual winter workshops with international educator and blacksmith Uri Hofi for metal artisans at the Fine Architectural Metalsmiths studio in Florida, NY. The five-day intensive Comprehensive Fundamentals of Blacksmithing course will be held from February 7-11, 2005 and the advanced Toolmaking and Joinery course is scheduled for February 14-18, 2005. The Comprehensive Fundamentals course is open for beginning and advanced smiths, and teaches Hofi's ergonomic approach to blacksmithing. The Comprehensive Fundamentals course is a prerequisite for any of the advanced courses with Hofi.

November 10, 2004 -- Uri Hofi will offer two winter session workshops February 7-11, 2005 and February 14-18, 2005, at the Center for Metals Arts studio in Florida, NY.

Hofis fast-paced Comprehensive Fundamentals Course teaches efficient movement of the material and effective tooling, along with an extensive survey of topics in metallurgy, and it is the basis for his classes in Advanced Fundamentals, Power Hammer work and Advanced Power Hammer. Hofis hammer design has been widely imitated, and a search on Google brings up hundreds of sites, with wide degrees of accurate information. CMA offers the opportunity to learn directly with the master himself.

Hofi, who has developed new tooling and techniques for hot forge work, teaches his method in Europe, Japan, Israel, and at the Center for Metal Arts in the United States. Hofis Comprehensive Course on Blacksmithing is a famously intensive course on efficient process, effective tooling, and an extensive survey of topics in metallurgy.

The Hofi system is an ergonomic approach to tooling and methodology that is designed to work with the natural motions of the body. The Hofi method uses minimum energy and time for maximum movement of the material, which protects muscles, nerves, joints, and bones from damage. The five-day intensive workshop covers techniques and processes of production through the making of efficient tooling, from chisels and tongs to hammers and punches. Along with the many samples produced in the daily practice sessions, students typically produce an unusual set of tongs. Hofi demonstrates the engineering behind his unique crowned hammer dies, the chisels and punches, and the Hofi hammer, whose radical weighting and design have been widely imitated.

The studio workshop at the Center for Metal Arts has ten fully equipped working stations for hand hammer work at the anvil, power hammer stations gas and coal forges, and a classroom area for lectures and demonstrations. Adjacent to the studio workshop is the commercial working studio of Fine Architectural Metalsmiths, with an upstairs showroom in the large barn built in the 1890s as an icehouse for Bordens Creamery. For the architectural designer, the showroom is also a learning center of elements and design possibility.

The Center for Metal Arts is in the geologically unique countryside of Florida, NY, with a small town atmosphere surrounded by black dirt farmland, just 70 miles northwest of New York City. It is within 30 minutes of Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, NY, and easy driving access via Interstate Rte 84, NYS Rte 87, or NYS Rte 17.

Applications for the Winter Session can be downloaded from the e-mail protected from spam bots website Skills Training page, or call (845) 651-7550 for an application and more information.

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