Best Seller The Blacksmith Series [BV19aGXg]

Best Seller The Blacksmith Series [BV19aGXg]

18 x 14” Digital Print on archival paper

Signed & Numbered Limited Edition of 40

©2015 Djibril N’Doye 

Unfortunately, sometimes tradition and modern technology don’t coexist well with each other and I wish they could.

After the discovery of iron, hand tools, hand weapons, cookware and many other implements made by blacksmiths with heavy forgery. In some countries, being a blacksmith is a profession of nobility and that work is highly regarded and respected. Sadly in many other cultures, a blacksmith, designated at birth by maternal lineage, is a menial job. 

How positive it is that the one who makes the tools the family is depending on, the farmer, fisherman, and the hunter, is placed socially in a caste lower than the ones who practice a mechanical work system that is not locally developed. Blacksmiths are the first in contact with maneuvering iron. 

Maybe if they had government support, the blacksmiths could and should be an asset in metal invention in general. But if elected officials are driven by the same belief in a caste system it is not progressing. Maybe it’s not too late to correct this restrictive social structure.

With modern study on scientific and chemical composition, the industrial development takes over almost everything. Rivets which were made by hand are completely replaced by mass produced screws and mathematical precision. It is like progress from school collides with the traditional way of making things and it is not a bad thing – they just could co-exist.