Meet David Bradley | Artist Blacksmith

We had the good fortune of connecting with David Bradley and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi David, what’s the most important thing you’ve done for your children?
First I want to highlight that we had our son Joseph when we were both only 19 years old. My wife Valerie and I were starting college back in Mississippi at the time. In order to provide for us, I joined the military and we started our new life. We moved around quite a bit and dealt with deployments and other difficulties. During most of this time it’s just been our small family of three. I think this journey brought us all closer as a family which has contributed quite a bit to how Joe’s life has been shaped. I think it’s really helped us know and understand his personality and know the things that he enjoys.

I would say that engagement and caring have had the biggest impact on his life. As parents, we’re always on the lookout for things he might enjoy, or things that might help him build and improve his life in a way that fits his personality. And that’s the big part – “in a way that fits his personality”. My wife helped tremendously in this way by homeschooling him during his high school years because he is very creative and school wasn’t providing enough to support that creativity. Every person is different and in many cases a school’s one-size-fits-all model just doesn’t work. Valerie did an outstanding job helping Joe be successful throughout high school.

I remember finding a gaming platform called ROBLOX for Joe when he was around nine years old. I immediately knew he would like it, so I showed him. He really loved being able to create on the platform and it fit him perfectly. He moved from playing games to building games and has kept it up. He’s learned programming, design, project management, and many other things from the game over the years and has had millions of game plays in game’s he’s created. I think keeping an open mind as a parent really contributed to his success. You really have to know your children well and genuinely care about them.

Now that he’s in college we helped him find a program we thought might fit his ambitions. He’s taking video game development courses that are inline with what he’s been doing all these years and he’s enjoying it! We aren’t forcing him to do anything – just using our knowledge and experience to guide him. We’ve really put a lot of effort in over the years. We’ve never taken the easy road – and it’s paid off!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I forge objects out of steel and copper. Forging (blacksmithing) is an artistic medium that isn’t very common today. It’s a bit difficult and expensive to start which provides a barrier to entry for many folks. I started on our farm in Ohio because my wife Valerie wanted to try it. I built her a wood-fired forge and we tried it out. It was a light bulb moment for me – realizing steel was softer when heated and could be shaped. Wow, it was really interesting! Well, needless to say, I ended up being the one that got hooked on forging.

Over the past 8 years or so I’ve put in thousands of practice hours and learned many techniques. I would say after six years of working at it I finally felt comfortable calling myself a blacksmith. I think the time comes when you have a good understanding of how steel works, you know all the basic processes, and you understand how you would go about forging just about any object. That’s the time when you can call yourself a blacksmith.

The last few years I’ve pushed myself into making cookware – mainly outdoor cookware. I see cookware as the last bastion for blacksmithing. It holds a place for the utility of forging in the modern-day when everything is mass produced and small time forging could be rendered obsolete. You can make truly unique things forging cookware. I also genuinely love outdoor cooking – something we did a lot in our fishing fraternity on Twin Creek back in Ohio.

Forging really offers an endless stream of utilitarian creativity. I love to make up new things and implement them immediately in my own shop. I’ve made hundreds of different things over the years and it has been really fun.

One of the biggest challenges for me is selling my work. I’m a perfectionist, so it seems like everything I make, I end up wanting to make it better. I already know what I made is very good, but it’s just never quite good enough for me. Also, I’m not a salesman by any means. I want my customers to get the utmost value for their money. I am a pretty frugal person which makes it difficult to sell something for a price I may not even buy it for. However, I do love other people’s artistic works and really do see the value in them, so I just have to maybe take a customer’s perspective when valuing my own work.
My main goal now is to make the best camp cooking skillets in the world and I think I’ve already achieved that with my recent prototypes. The difficult part now is scaling my business and making enough products to satisfy demand.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Well, there are just so many things to do it’s sometimes hard to choose! The first day we would probably head down to the studio at the Manitou Art Center and play around in the shop for a bit – I always like to show off the shop. The Art Center has everything you could imagine in the makerspace – woodworking, metal shop, forging, weaving, sewing, pottery, leatherwork, printmaking, and more. It’s always fun to check in and see some of the amazing artwork in the gallery there as well.

After that we would maybe walk down and grab a beer and some nachos at the Manitou Brewing Company, then hike around a bit and drink out of some of the different springs throughout town. We’d probably hit up the arcade and play some games too – that’s always fun!

In the evening we would walk the shops in OCC and downtown Colorado Springs. Later we’d grab some delicious Maco’s Tacos and relax at the house. The next day we would head down to the Arkansas river for some fly fishing and camping. We might head up to Salida or Cripple Creek for the evenings – or just sit around camp and cook up some good food. It would probably be a nice two or three day trip.

Once we’re back, we’d go over to Red Leg brewing to have a couple beers and reminisce about all the fish we caught! I really love Red Leg’s beer – especially the Howitzer Amber Ale and the Extra Special Bitter (ESB). Then we’d probably hit up a farmers market and some of the local food makers for some local grub, take it back home and cook a good meal. It would then be time to rest-up for the next trip into the mountains. I’d throw the hammocks up at the local part to relax and take it easy for a bit.

The next morning, we’d take Hwy 24 up unto the mountains and do some fly fishing and dispersed camping. We’d make sure we had plenty of breakfast food for the morning camp cookouts. I usually make sausage and eggs on toast to start the day. I’d take the kayaks as well and paddle around one of the reservoirs – I’d really like to hook into a big pike some day.

I forgot to mention the coffee shops we’d hit along the way. I always have a coffee in one hand and either a fly rod or a hammer in the other, lol. I’m a huge fan of Corter Coffee Roasters and Frankly Coffee. Corter brews some of the best coffee I’ve had, period. And the folks at Frankly are awesome – and the coffee is excellent.

That’s about it for a weeklong trip. I really have a lot of exploring to do here, so if you ask me again next year there will definitely be more on the list.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to dedicate the shoutout to my wife Valerie. She has worked incredibly hard over the years and has shaped my life more than anyone. She’s helped me realize just how much I can learn and do if I push myself. She’s made me a far better person than I ever would have been on my own. I’ve read more books, traveled more, and developed a much deeper perspective on life because of her. She has surmounted incredible difficulties and worked harder than any other person I know. At 39 years old, we’ve been married for 20 years now. That’s no small feat for a couple thrust into the world at such a young age. We made it, and I’m proud of us.

I’d also like to recognize our family. Every person in our family has been there for us in one way or another over the years. We are very lucky to have this support. It would have been incredibly difficult without it.

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