I filmed this with help from my dad (Peter Powning) and a tripod back in 2009. It demonstrates some of the process of making the Viking sword Vardhllokur. It was edited by the good people at Galatia Films for the special features of the movie “Reclaiming The Blade”. If you’re …
Tune in and watch the build on May 28-31 for daily live broadcasts between 10AM and 2PM Alaska Standard Time (2PM — 6PM EST, 6PM — 10PM GMT) Artic Fire 2013
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This is a preview of a DVD which includes two presentations that I did at the Arctic Fire Swordsmithing event in Alaska in June of 2012, as well as several interviews. There is also footage of Swordsmiths Michael Pikula, David Delagardelle, Don Fogg, Peter Johnsson and J. Arthur Loose. This …
The sun cuts low through winter trees, woodsmoke hangs in the air. Walking through the forest one day I find what’s left of a raven dance, the steps clear in the snow. I can see where a raven has scratched it’s beak back and forth drawing concentric lines. As part …
I rise before the sun, the scratchy radio voices catalog what bad things have happened in the world while I slept. But the world tells a different story– out the old farmhouse window the dawn blooms impossible colours against the somnabulant landscape. Two ravens sit warily in the orchard on …
The Year wanes; leaves wither and go dancing off into the land of moldering and glimmering bone colours. Work is coming together after the many distractions and events of short summer. Since I was a young boy, I have drawn dragons. There is something …
This morning, I walked into the woods. past the remains of human industry, moldering in the fresh shoots, turning brown and grey, across the stepping stone ford into the realm of the forest, where the primal imagination is at home and feels its roots. Tree roots twist in suggestive shapes; …
I’ve just returned from a three-week trip to Britain. I taught a class about carving Iron Age ornamentation in wood, helped with a sword course that my friend Owen Bush was teaching and presented at a swordsmithing conference. Owens workshop and home “Bushfire Forge” is an amazing place to do …
Snowshoe to work. Snow like frozen waves across the field. Buds frost spiked. Brush wolf tracks across watering hole. Startling green watercress. Patterns emerge amid lengthening days. More storms blow through, the world is blue tinged inside where windows are blocked by snowdrifts. The wind whistles high through a crack …
Snow falls on snow, then more snow falls. Somewhere in the forested hills the bear sow and her cubs hibernate and the moose shifts about in his winter yard. It is snowshoe weather, too deep for skis. I spent the day yesterday shoveling the snow from the roof of my …