Forging Beyond Boundaries

Boundaries come in many different forms & are in many different areas. There are spiritual boundaries, emotional boundaries, financial boundaries & physical boundaries within which the bulk of mankind sadly keep within. I say keep within because many of our so called boundaries are self set; set within our own minds. The problem is that often times these initially fine boundary webs when believed strong enough become like steel cables binding from within & keeping us from becoming all that God has planned for us.

Paul Damion Hughes is our September 2010 Boundary Breaker of the month. He is one person who has brushed away these fine webs of pseudo-limitations in the area of art to use techniques long disappeared.

When Damion was in 7th grade, he was introduced to stone sculpting. He was quickly hooked on his ability to take cold innate stone & with ones own two hands & a few primitive tools, could transform that stone into something that expressed warmth & emotion. Working with his hands allowed him to “feel” the work.

Fast forward many years & Damion has applied this same mindset to metal working. He became fascinated with the plating techniques from the medieval times & made it a point to master all of the metal working techniques that the masters of old used. The fact that one could easily use modern tools to do the same thing was not even considered. Damion quickly broke through that boundary to once again, use his hands & primitive tools.

Since forging was used back in the medieval times, Damion made his own “pit forge” in the backyard to forge the metal to allowing him to work his magic. He says that “When the metal is red hot, you can work it into whatever shape you desire using a hammer & anvil. It is sort of like dough but much hotter.”

Damion has made suits of armor, swords, knives & shields as well as many unique metal works of art.

Know No Boundaries commissioned Damion to make a shield to symbolize the Armor of God & also contain the foundation’s rising phoenix logo.

He did not disappoint us in his creation of “Triumph”.