Beach Bites

Community Bring on the butter!

This years 28th annual Church of the Servant Episcopal Lobster Fest packs on the pounds pounds of lobster that is. Held on June 9 the Church of the Servant Episcopal located at 4925 Oriole Drive will offer preordered lobsters from noon to 5 p.m.

Ordered from suppliers in Maine event goers are encouraged to take home the live 1.25- to 1.5-pound sea creatures or have them cooked in the churchs supersized steamers. The live lobsters are $19; cooked lobsters are $21.

The churchs “lobster shack” held in the parish hall is run by several committee members eager to cook up the juicy crustaceans. For those impartial to the sea alternative food options are being offered such as corn on the cob cole slaw potatoes sausage and rolls.

With an anticipated attendance of more than 300 guests the
event is the churchs largest annual fundraiser. The money raised from both events will be used to fund expenses and church programs.

Harbor Island Block Party. Started by Reverend Joe Cooper a former Harbor Island resident the event includes a neighborhood block party on Harbor Island attended by local residents from 7 to 10 p.m. on Live Oak Drive. Homeowners decorate their driveways with delicately set tables to compliment the backdrop of illuminated trees. Neighbors and friends bring covered dishes to munch on with the cooked lobsters.

Don Hickey church member and a member of the Lobster Fest planning committee is ready to kick off this years block party.

“I will be cooking up lobster all day. It really should be a fun family atmosphere ” Hickey says.

Whether its rain or shine the lobsters will be clawing and cooking and the people will be biting. So bring a bib and an empty stomach and join the Church of the Servant on June 9 for Lobster Fest. Barrie Cohen

True Grit Forged in fire

Two smiths rediscover lost arts creating masterful metal pieces that are truly one of a kind. byTyler Roberts Photography by Joshua Curry

Blacksmith Jeff Bridgers

A young man in an ancient trade Jeff Bridgers complements his love for traditional design with a contemporary eye. In many ways he forges the past with the present bringing new life to a lost art.

He works out of a hand-built work shed at his parents home in Leland. Large wooden double doors adorned with twisted iron handles swing open to reveal a sprawling workspace equipped with hand-forged tools a heavy anvil and boxes of steel and iron.

He fires up his forge. Flames leap from its mouth as he fans oxygen into the kiln to heat a piece of metal.

A beard and black plastic glasses conceal his young face. At 26 Bridgers has about as much soot under his fingernails as his elders the most experienced blacksmiths.

Day after day he is alone in his shop. Max his golden retriever visits but the countryside lends a solitude that allows Bridgers to tap out new creations without distraction.

Bridgers enrolled at Cape Fear Community College to learn how to weld when he was 18. He found work in structural welding fabricating crane booms and soccer goals. Time behind the blowtorch trained him to cut weld and burn metal. It was an invaluable education that taught him the essentials of metalwork.

His blacksmith training was unorthodox. About five years ago Bridgers began hammering around in his own garage with a few fundamental blacksmithing tools. Once a week he volunteered at Poplar Grove Plantations blacksmith shop. Bridgers began meeting more seasoned blacksmiths from the region at Poplar Grove and started attending hammer-in meetings where he would swap tips and tricks with other smiths.

“It is an art form ” he says “but I see it more of a skilled trade because I have spent so many hours behind a welding torch and so many hours behind a forge.”

Art or trade Bridgers appears to have a handle on both aspects of the age-old craft. His traditional designs are tinted with a historical refinement. The metal twists curls and bends into fascinating scrolls that look more like sculpture than functional furnishings.

“I like making timeless things ” he says displaying a photo of a wood and iron draft table he recently made for his design studio. “I will make it look industrial but then add some scroll to it.”

There is a naturalistic aspect to his work as well. He enjoys crafting organic objects such as flowers which appear in several of his designs. It is here that utility and creativity come to a crossroads where ordinary objects like door handles towel racks and signposts are transformed into keepsakes.

In the back of Bridgers shop are piles of small metal pieces that he is fabricating for the South Front apartment complex in downtown Wilmington. Each piece is heated hammered and polished before furnishing every unit in the complex. Though he has completed custom work for restaurants and homes he says he is beginning to shift his focus to building furniture.

“They dont make quality stuff anymore ” Bridgers says. His aim is to create metal-wood furniture that is expertly crafted and durable yet affordable unlike the stools in the back of his pickup truck waiting for repair.

Bladesmith Scott McGhee

In the Bladen County countryside Scott McGhee is hard at work. The clanking of a heavy hammer on heated steel can be heard from the road as it mixes in a soundscape of crowing roosters clucking hens and the low grunts of guinea hogs. Warmth radiates from his workspace in a shed behind his home as he fires up his kiln the birthplace of his hand-forged knives.

Knife forging has been a love affair for McGhee since he was a young adult. When he was 17 he lied about his age to enroll in a knife-making class. He turned away from knife forging to pursue a more stable career as a tree arborist but his passion was rekindled later in life when his son expressed an interest in making a knife. It was just a little hunter knife but McGhee fell in love with the process again.

“This is a working functioning piece of art ” McGhee says as he handles a 14-inch knife he calls The Mamba. “It is something that I know I can make that is better than anything you can buy at the store and is beautiful.”

A knife forger must be part technician and part artist McGhee says. A good technician will make the knife useful dependable and strong. But the artist gives his soul to a knife and breathes into it a life of its own.

Before forging a new knife McGhee considers the shape and pattern.
He takes a pencil to drafting paper and sketches the knife leaning on past experiences as he dares to explore new methods and figures.

A shapeless piece of steel is placed in the forge and heated to 2 315 degrees. McGhee carefully extracts the burning metal from the forge and places it in the mouth of a hammer that slams automatically flattening the blade and giving it shape. The metal is heated again and again each time returning to an anvil where McGhee strikes it with heavy blows and careful precision until the knifes point is sharp.

McGhee scrutinizes the shape through his round wire-framed spectacles. It looks like a knife but it is still just a piece of metal to him. The real work is yet to be done. The knife must be heat-treated sanded and polished each step is as significant and tedious as the last.

Finally McGhee outfits the knife with a custom wood handle. The arborist turned bladesmith chooses between an array of beautiful domestic and exotic woods. In a cardboard box kept in the back of his workspace he hoards walnut African blackwood desert ironwood redwood and the penile bone of a walrus. He doesnt choose. The knife does.

“The art of knife making is in the flow of the knife ” he says pointing to the contours within the blade. The wood must complement those contours in a way that accentuates the flow.

Self-employed as an arborist for 18 years McGhee says that throughout his career he did a lot of climbing pruning and chopping with nothing to show for it but a stump and a pile of woodchips. It was depressing he says so he focused more on pruning and consulting.

“I loved it because of the creativity ” he says. “It was something that lived beyond what I did today. Knife forging gives me the same thing but it is easier on my knees and shoulders ” he jokes.

At the end of the day there is much McGhee can show for his work: knives cut with precision strengthened by heat and refined with an artists touch. His rugged personality and fiery edge are revealed in each hunter camper fighter and specialty knife he creates.

Blacksmith Jeff Bridgers

A young man in an ancient trade Jeff Bridgers complements his love for traditional design with a contemporary eye. In many ways he forges the past with the present bringing new life to a lost art.

He works out of a hand-built work shed at his parents home in Leland. Large wooden double doors adorned with twisted iron handles swing open to reveal a sprawling workspace equipped with hand-forged tools a heavy anvil and boxes of steel and iron.

He fires up his forge. Flames leap from its mouth as he fans oxygen into the kiln to heat a piece of metal.

A beard and black plastic glasses conceal his young face. At 26 Bridgers has about as much soot under his fingernails as his elders the most experienced blacksmiths.

Day after day he is alone in his shop. Max his golden retriever visits but the countryside lends a solitude that allows Bridgers to tap out new creations without distraction.

Bridgers enrolled at Cape Fear Community College to learn how to weld when he was 18. He found work in structural welding fabricating crane booms and soccer goals. Time behind the blowtorch trained him to cut weld and burn metal. It was an invaluable education that taught him the essentials of metalwork.

His blacksmith training was unorthodox. About five years ago Bridgers began hammering around in his own garage with a few fundamental blacksmithing tools. Once a week he volunteered at Poplar Grove Plantations blacksmith shop. Bridgers began meeting more seasoned blacksmiths from the region at Poplar Grove and started attending hammer-in meetings where he would swap tips and tricks with other smiths.

“It is an art form ” he says “but I see it more of a skilled trade because I have spent so many hours behind a welding torch and so many hours behind a forge.”

Art or trade Bridgers appears to have a handle on both aspects of the age-old craft. His traditional designs are tinted with a historical refinement. The metal twists curls and bends into fascinating scrolls that look more like sculpture than functional furnishings.

“I like making timeless things ” he says displaying a photo of a wood and iron draft table he recently made for his design studio. “I will make it look industrial but then add some scroll to it.”

There is a naturalistic aspect to his work as well. He enjoys crafting organic objects such as flowers which appear in several of his designs. It is here that utility and creativity come to a crossroads where ordinary objects like door handles towel racks and signposts are transformed into keepsakes.

In the back of Bridgers shop are piles of small metal pieces that he is fabricating for the South Front apartment complex in downtown Wilmington. Each piece is heated hammered and polished before furnishing every unit in the complex. Though he has completed custom work for restaurants and homes he says he is beginning to shift his focus to building furniture.

“They dont make quality stuff anymore ” Bridgers says. His aim is to create metal-wood furniture that is expertly crafted and durable yet affordable unlike the stools in the back of his pickup truck waiting for repair.

 Bladesmith Scott McGhee

In the Bladen County countryside Scott McGhee is hard at work. The clanking of a heavy hammer on heated steel can be heard from the road as it mixes in a soundscape of crowing roosters clucking hens and the low grunts of guinea hogs. Warmth radiates from his workspace in a shed behind his home as he fires up his kiln the birthplace of his hand-forged knives.

Knife forging has been a love affair for McGhee since he was a young adult. When he was 17 he lied about his age to enroll in a knife-making class. He turned away from knife forging to pursue a more stable career as a tree arborist but his passion was rekindled later in life when his son expressed an interest in making a knife. It was just a little hunter knife but McGhee fell in love with the process again.

“This is a working functioning piece of art ” McGhee says as he handles a 14-inch knife he calls The Mamba. “It is something that I know I can make that is better than anything you can buy at the store and is beautiful.”

A knife forger must be part technician and part artist McGhee says. A good technician will make the knife useful dependable and strong. But the artist gives his soul to a knife and breathes into it a life of its own.

Before forging a new knife McGhee considers the shape and pattern.
He takes a pencil to drafting paper and sketches the knife leaning on past experiences as he dares to explore new methods and figures.

A shapeless piece of steel is placed in the forge and heated to 2 315 degrees. McGhee carefully extracts the burning metal from the forge and places it in the mouth of a hammer that slams automatically flattening the blade and giving it shape. The metal is heated again and again each time returning to an anvil where McGhee strikes it with heavy blows and careful precision until the knifes point is sharp.

McGhee scrutinizes the shape through his round wire-framed spectacles. It looks like a knife but it is still just a piece of metal to him. The real work is yet to be done. The knife must be heat-treated sanded and polished each step is as significant and tedious as the last.

Finally McGhee outfits the knife with a custom wood handle. The arborist turned bladesmith chooses between an array of beautiful domestic and exotic woods. In a cardboard box kept in the back of his workspace he hoards walnut African blackwood desert ironwood redwood and the penile bone of a walrus. He doesnt choose. The knife does.

“The art of knife making is in the flow of the knife ” he says pointing to the contours within the blade. The wood must complement those contours in a way that accentuates the flow.

Self-employed as an arborist for 18 years McGhee says that throughout his career he did a lot of climbing pruning and chopping with nothing to show for it but a stump and a pile of woodchips. It was depressing he says so he focused more on pruning and consulting.

“I loved it because of the creativity ” he says. “It was something that lived beyond what I did today. Knife forging gives me the same thing but it is easier on my knees and shoulders ” he jokes.

At the end of the day there is much McGhee can show for his work: knives cut with precision strengthened by heat and refined with an artists touch. His rugged personality and fiery edge are revealed in each hunter camper fighter and specialty knife he creates.