“Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant,” Ralph Waldo Emerson said.
Art can take many forms. Freshman Tyler Rowe is a blacksmith. Rowe has a passion for bringing back experiences from the past.
“When I went to a John Deere expo in Oregon, Illinois the Blacksmith there told me that if I came tomorrow with jeans and an apron I could help. So that very next day, I did it,” Rowe said.
Right from the beginning the passion he has is shown when he is talking about the process. The way he looks at his creation shows how proud he truly is. The things he makes show his love for the art.
Rowe says that so many different things can be made from steel.
“I’m in the process of making a kitchen knife,” Rowe said.
The knife he is making requires multiple pieces of the main project to be cut off and made into smaller projects. The most recent is a leaf.
“Blacksmithing is something you can take and make anything out of it. There are endless possibilities,” Rowe said.
Blacksmithing isn’t the only hobby Rowe has. Every year for the past 25 years his dad has had a booth at the Sandwich County fair. The booth teaches kids about some of the ways people lived in the 1800’s.
“We teach kids anything about the 1850’s and corn. We teach them how to shuck corn or anything they would have had to do with corn,” Rowe said.
The Rowe’s have farming tools from the 1800’s that they show kids how they were used.
“There is a four row corn planter that was used. There are currently only four in the world. My dad and I have one of them,” Rowe said.