Blacksmithing Workshop

A workshop participant holds a completed iron hook up in the foreground while others work at the fire and a second anvil in the background, with blue sky beyond. — Photo by **Megan Bean**

February 8, 2022

A recent Blacksmithing Workshop, presented by 91��ý's Idea Shop and hosted by the Department of Art’s sculpture division, demonstrated how to make a metal wall hook. Idea Shop manager and workshop instructor Steven Bailey, pictured tending the fire, explained how to use heat to shape and forge metal and helped 91��ý students and Starkville residents utilize a newly built coal forge. Operated in partnership by the university’s College of Business and School of Human Sciences, the Idea Shop--located on Main Street in Starkville--houses the Turner A. Wingo Maker Studio and the 91��ý Retail Product Accelerator. The Maker Studio contains a myriad of wood, polymer, and metal prototyping equipment, as well as an electronics workbench and design suite. The Retail Product Accelerator helps entrepreneurs test market products in a fully-working retail store and gives students experience operating a business.