These pho­tos are long over­due, but this year’s Cal­i­for­nia Black­smith Asso­ci­a­tion Spring Con­fer­ence in Petaluma was a heck of time! The high­light this year was a visit from a trio of Ital­ian smiths — Clau­dio Bot­tero and the Stenico broth­ers, Jad­ran and Mar­tino. Dur­ing the two fea­ture days of the con­fer­ence, Clau­dio pro­duced a sculp­ture enti­tled “Casanova” work­ing with the Stenico broth­ers as his strik­ers.



Above: Claudio’s sketch… it seemed to serve more as a ref­er­ence for the ever grow­ing audi­ence, as none of the smiths appeared to refer to it dur­ing their forg­ing ses­sions



The fin­ished sculp­ture was auc­tioned off dur­ing Sat­ur­day night’s ban­quet. Just beau­ti­ful. More pho­tos from the con­fer­ence taken by the CBA librar­ian, Whit­ney Pot­ter, are avail­able here.

Set against the back­ground of the Petaluma Fair­grounds, there were plenty of tex­tural details to dis­cover as well. Here’s one of the more play­ful pieces of type I dis­cov­ered dur­ing the week­end: