Here at NorthStar Forge, we just wrapped up a seminar with Mareko Maumasi, an amazing bladesmith who specializes in creating beautiful mosaic Damascus.
Founder of the Olympia, WA – based Maumasi Fire Arts and co-host of Knife Talk Podcast, Maumasi was invited to demonstrate his unique skill at the annual Midwest Knifemakers Guild Hammer-in Aug. 16-17 in Mankato, MN.
For the second year, NorthStar Forge Founder Jason Kraus decided to piggy-back off the Guild’s annual featured bladesmith by inviting Mareko to be a guest instructor for an advanced two-day course following the Hammer-in.
You may recall last year’s guest instructor was Maine-based Master Smith Nick Rossi, who taught his friction folder class to a group of six makers after presenting at the Guild hammer-in. You can read the blog on that here.
Since that was a wildly successful class and a great experience to all who attended, NorthStar continued the momentum with Maumasi’s Decoding Mosaic Damascus, a two-day seminar that focused on understanding material movement to create unique patterns.
Maumasi brought his own patterns as examples – students were also encouraged to share their own patterns or other maker’s patterns – and worked as a class to reverse engineer them to better understand how the material was flowing.
“It was a game-changing experience and I can’t wait to execute what I learned,” Kraus said of the class.
“Mareko’s teaching techniques were clear, concise and conceivable. He was really good and just walking us through step by step,” Kraus added.
Kraus hopes to continue hosting similar classes – which he is calling the Masters of the Craft series – on an annual basis, if not more throughout the year depending on interest and maker availability.
If you have any suggestions for future classes or are interested in being a guest host, please send us a note.
Thank you, Mareko, and all those who attended NorthStar Forge’s second annual Masters of the Craft series.
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