Cargoes #3

2008

The blade steel is the laminated steel that I developed during my PhD and has veins of pure silver running through it.

The wrought iron was heavily etched to reveal a striking layered characteristic.

This is a set of three knives in memory of my father.

Last year when he had had a stroke and was struggling with his memory, my father was sitting with his friends recalling poetry that they had learnt nearly seventy years previously.

Cargoes by John Masefield was his favourite and the verses are just so evocative, that I started jotting down ideas for these knives when I was listening to them.

Each knife matches a verse.

Sometimes, I’ll carry an idea for a knife in my head or sketch book for a time, while I source materials or finalise a detail. This was one of those projects.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked
smoke-stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad
March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rail, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.