Join master Blacksmith Pete Mattila and a guest Blacksmith to forge your very own keepsake metal swan feather. The on-site forge is one of the oldest in Australia, reignited especially for ECHO Festival 2023!
Pete Mattila
Trained as an industrial blacksmith and welder, Pete Mattila’s work celebrates complex histories, in art, craft and design as well as in industrial expression.
“The Meaning of the pieces I produce is, for me, inextricably entwined with process, material, physical engagement, and technical ability. It is only through open-ended activity that new works can emerge. The way I view my work is like a continuous thread in a larger fabric. I am a maker; what I am making is new to me. I am not viewing it from the outside, I am viewing it from the inside. My conceptual framework comes from that act of doing, making, thinking. I make objects out of steel. Each new moment emerges from its history and could not be arrived at without it. In this way, the object is
continually emerging. To me, they are not resolved static things: within each is a growth of understanding.”
continually emerging. To me, they are not resolved static things: within each is a growth of understanding.”
—Pete Mattila
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