Forged in Fire

“The life so short, the craft so long to learn.” The quote from Chaucer, writ atop the blacksmith’s forge, is barely discernible. Blazing heat, black smoke, and time have dimmed the characters. For one local man, the desire to master the forge and the anvil has not faded, however. It is emblazoned upon his soul.

In far west Marshall County sits a nondescript cabin. A stream of smoke dances gently from the chimney.  A rooster sits guard, pecking at the wood on the back porch. The door swings open, and out steps Layne Hendrickson with his dog Gwennie. He is a hulking man, his broad shoulders looped by the straps of his denim overalls. He plods a well-worn path through the woods until he reaches his working abode. A blacksmith by trade, Layne continues a tradition that at one time faced extinction.

If the name Layne Hendrickson sounds familiar to you, it is possible you’ve encountered him through his music. He is the founder and original front man of 61 South. When the lead guitar player left the band in the early 90s, Layne recruited Lew Jetton. Layne later moved to New Orleans, turning the reigns over to Lew. Layne has also been instrumental in The Legendary Shack Shakers and The Dirt Daubers. While he still enjoys creating music, he is admittedly too much of a homebody to do it full time.

“I’ve lived all over playing professional music,” says Layne. “I’ve toured from coast to coast, and that’s not the life for me. I want my wood stove, dog, and recliner. I’m thrilled some of the other guys got to do it, but I’m thrilled I get to sleep in my bed every night!”

Layne moved back to the Marshall County property that’s been in his family since the early 1850s. Educated in psychology, he worked as a counselor. That is until he visited a local craft show. There, Layne watched a blacksmith at work, and found his calling. “I stood there for at least an hour. He asked if I wanted to try, so I jumped in! It was so cool, making something out of metal. It was like working with clay. I came home and made my first forge out of a brake drum, my wife’s hair dryer, and some charcoal. I started out making S hooks.”

Layne, who admittedly goes all-out when trying something new, continued growing in what he then described as a hobby. “I built around my little working spot in the woods. Eventually, I was adding lean-tos to my lean-tos.” He acquired a 1903, 460 pound anvil from the railroad yard in Paducah. The brake drum gave way to a 1913 industrial forge and an original hand-crank blower. He eventually added an industrial power hammer he calls Thumper. “The old timers had apprentices. It would be several 18, 19 year old guys who could do heavy striking .The blacksmith would save his arm for the finer work. I don’t have apprentices, so I have Thumper.”

In the beginning, Layne was more of an artisan, creating serpentine bowl stands, decorative daggers, jewelry, and metal snails. “I was helped greatly by the Kentucky Arts Council and Kentucky Crafted, two tax-payer supported organizations that everyone should be familiar with.” When he started doing work for a reproduction company in Connecticut, however, he moved in a different direction. “I was creating colonial reproduction hardware such as thumb latches, strap hinges, and so on. I was a one-man assembly line! I worked with them for about two years, and now I do it on my own. This is what I enjoy doing.” Most of his business is from the northeast. “Someone may be restoring or adding to a colonial home, and they need latches and hinges. I study early American blacksmithing in different areas and periods so that my work matches the style.” His most notable order came from Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas who needed 254 bean cusp strap hinges for a Connecticut home.

His work attracted national attention, and before long, film crews started showing up at his door. “I’ve been featured on Bluegrass and Backroads. The segment is available on Youtube. And HGTV came out for the show That’s Clever. I don’t think the neighbors out here realize how many video crews and photographers have been out here. We even had a sound crew come out to record sounds in smithy for the Shack Shakers album Agridustrial.”

Layne is also a collector of works from blacksmiths of yesteryear. “In the past, everyone did a little bit of blacksmithing. People had to. And every little town had at least one professional blacksmith. There was no mass production. After World War II, however, blacksmithing nearly disappeared completely. It started a comeback in the 70s, however, in places like SIU in Carbondale. People are now once again passing the trade along. Some cool, older guys taught me, and now I am teaching some guys who want to learn.”

Some of Layne’s favorite antique pieces include a 1770 anvil he keeps next to his woodstove, old shears that can still cut through cold iron, and a short length of chain created by his great-grandfather who was a blacksmith in the Jonathan Creek area. “Even as a kid, I could look at this chain and see his hammer marks. I see how he made it. This is all I have of his work, but it is a record of that day when he got up, went to work, and made a chain. It could be around for thousands of years. That’s what I love about this work. I think about how long it could be around and still functioning.”

For Layne, this is the attraction of the smithy. He is himself a link in a chain that bonds the past with the present and hopefully the future. “Years after my death, I want someone to look at a piece of my work and admire it… to read the hammer marks as a record of another distant morning’s labor of love.  Whether they know my name or not does not matter.  People frequently ask me, ‘How much do you get for one of those?’ and then inevitably ‘How long does it take you to make one?’  I can hear them silently calculating my hourly wage.  Then they ask incredulously ‘You can make a living at this?’  I answer with a smile, ‘Define Living.’ Some folks just don’t get it yet. A legacy was given to me. I intend to take good care of it until my last hammer blow.”

More information on Layne’s work and how to order can be found at oaklevelforge.com.