i forged a hammer today.
i am unsure how
it fits into my art but
i forged a hammer today.
and it feels important
it feels like a small act of
defiance
towards a society that still
does not expect me
to be able
to forge a hammer.
so, when i was done
i made another one.
- defiance
Tools of Resilience creates a paradox of material and meaning; a tension between fragility and strength, appearance, expectations and value. Anchored to a heavy tree stump stands a huge anvil made of dark clay. On it, a pair of blacksmithing tongs and a hammer lie as if somebody just left them there mid-process, the metal scale on the floor whispering stories of heat, force and making.
Combining different crafting techniques, Tools of Resilience counterposes the clay’s soft fragility to the unyielding strength of hardened steel tools, carrying the possibility of its own destruction. The anvil, a precise replica of the one I have used to forge the tools on, invites the viewer not to trust the eye, to look past biased expectations.
Calling out the gendered architecture of society, the piece refuses the silent assumption that specific crafts belong to a certain kind of body. Forging my own hammer felt like an act of defiance towards a history that had excluded women for so long. A small victory in a society that still does not expect me to be able to forge a hammer, reclaiming strength as the courage to be fragile, and still stand.
