Western North Carolina Bladesmith

I've recently started the process of bringing back a personal project that I started many years ago when I lived in Georgia. This project is based on documenting artisans in fields slowly fading away and becoming more hobbies or skills of the past. My goal with this project is to spotlight talented artisans and remind people of the skills and crafts that were prevalent a short time ago.

Jasper Ironworks is the first artisan in this series. I discovered Jasper's work through Instagram and reached out about working together. After a few messages back and forth, we scheduled the photo shoot at his shop in Western North Carolina. While setting up my gear, I got the chance to get to know Jasper more and found out he spends a lot of his time teaching people the art of bladesmithing when not working on custom knife orders. His start was in blacksmithing at a young age, but over the years, he moved to do more bladesmithing.

While setting up, we discussed the goal of the project and my ideas for the photo shoot. After a few minutes of discussion, I was somewhat taken aback that Jasper threw out the idea of making a knife just for the shoot. I was even more amazed at his speed and talent to take raw materials and make a knife in such a short time. After the session, I discovered he was on the TV show Forged In Fire, but the episode still needed to air at this post. If you are looking for a custom knife or want to learn more about bladesmithing, be sure to check out https://www.jasperherrironworks.com/