Ashokan NBA Fall Meet 2009

Fall Meeting of the Northeast Blacksmiths Assoc.

Quadracentennial Meet – Going Dutch

We had a special guest as our demonstrator this Fall, Arie Haksteen, a smith from the Netherlands. I first met Arie when I traveled to the Netherlands as a guest of the Netherlands Artsmithing Guild (NGK). We became fast friends and I was able to visit his shop where he and his sons make hardware and architectural ironwork.

Arie served 2 years in the Dutch Royal Navy as an engineer and 3 years as an engineer in an electrical power plant. Then in 1971 he returned to work “in the smithy of my father”, where he learned from his father and older brother and old books on ironwork. At that time there were no schools for ironwork in the Netherlands. To fill this void, Arie and several other fellow smiths founded the N.G.K. in 1990. It offered a chance to learn from others in the Netherlands as well as from colleagues throughout Europe. Two important influences on Arie’s work were Alfred Habermann from Germany and Jos Spanier from Luxemburg.

In the NGK’s continuing effort to promote and preserve the art of Blacksmithing, they now have a forge shop in Huizen, Noord-Holland where they offer courses and workshops.

Arie has been fortunate to travel to many conferences throughout Europe both as a participant and as a demonstrator, to name a few: Kolbermoor, Germany; Helfstein, Czech Republic; Rummelange and Peppange, Luxemburg; Rouen, France; as well as the ABANA conferences in La Cross, Wisc. and Seattle,Wash., USA.

The output from Arie’s shop in Dordrecht consists mostly of the restoration of historic work such as gates, railings, church-tower crosses. He and his sons also make new work such as hinges, “cramp- irons” (wall anchors or braces), gates and railings in different styles, Art-Deco, Art-Nouveau, utilizing many flowers and leaves. In the shop they also make special tools, such as chisels, hammers and crowbars, of “a better quality that you cannot buy in the regular ironmonger’s shop”.