COLE HARRISON AURICHIO

My life as an artist likely began before I was aware of the fact, but my career as an artist began in 2013, the same year I started blacksmithing. Misspelled short stories eventually begot published poems, and I went to Warren Wilson College with the intent to become a writer. Or a teacher. Or something. I was not sure then, and I am now sure now. I studied literature and wrote thousands of poems, and started an even greater education into forged steel. But all throughout my college experience, I would have never guessed I would own and operate my own business as a blacksmith/studio artist just a few years after graduation.

I wanted to write, or at least incorporate writing and poetry into a career, likely teaching. However, following the death of my brother in my final year of college, poetry lost all of its color. Reading poetry still provided solace, but I could not write. I had no words for that sort of loss, and I still don’t. So here was the plan, after graduating in 2017, I wanted to take a gap year, and then go on to teach poetry without the ability to properly do so. I found work in the area doing what I knew, fabricating and finishing architectural steel at a shop down the road from the College. But I also had with me a small kit of blacksmithing tools I could sometimes convince my boss to incorporate into our work.

The choice became clear over time; I had the beginnings of a career in metalworking and the ashes of one in poetry. I packed up my tools and traveled around the country working in seven different shops over the course of several years. But throughout my journeymen career, I still had not found peace from my brother’s death. My inability to write built into emotional constipation that elapsed for years. I was working as a powder coater one summer, and I had an opportunity to take a class at Penland, and without hesitation, I did. Working in the Iron studio with a group of other students, we built the feather to your left under the guise of Roberto Giordani, and while our days were filled with heavy forging and fabrication, the nights were spent studying sculpture the only way I knew, by making. I learned from Roberto and my classmates that forged steel didn’t have to be just a railing at someone’s house, or an axe on the wall, it can exist beautifully as art and be appreciated by the world.

I think I made four or five sculptures at Penland that summer, but perhaps more importantly I met my partner Stormie Burns who woke a desire in me to develop a respectable studio practice. We eventually moved back to the Penland in the fall of 2020 and both work full time in our respective studios. I mainly work on a production basis, but I still find time to develop new sculptural projects.

Thank you for visiting my website and this page in particular. I have hoped you have enjoyed your journey through this glimpse of my life from a writer turned blacksmith.