elk & HAMMER

The Soul of the Blade: Steve Schwarzer

Master Bladesmith Steve Schwarzer is a rebel. Always has been. It’s just in his nature. He rejects the weapons of society — dictates on worth, education, business, purpose, success, self — and crafts tools from their remains. He teaches. He shares. He’s excited about life and his work. And he’s impassioned by igniting those fires in others. He may believe, as he says, that the soul of a knife is in the process, but his customers and friends might argue otherwise. Just as Schwarzer finds himself at the epicenter of an ever-growing body of bladesmiths and collectors, so is he at the very heart of each unique blade he forges. …

Compelled to Make: Joshua Prince

Born in Vermont in 1968, Joshua Prince was the second of three sons born to artistic parents who traded the speed and thrills of New York City to become farmers on 70 acres of pristine Rhode Island woodlands. Prince enjoyed a peaceful, idyllic early childhood surrounded by animals and nature. A later move to Providence, where his father had a professorship at The Rhode Island School of Design, secured Prince’s future in a state rich with diverse cultures and creative family friends. …

The Woman Behind elk & HAMMER: Ashley Childs

Ashley Childs’ passion for making, for transforming the banal into the breathtaking, began with herself. An oddity in the southern California surf town of Solana Beach, Ashley spent most of her time avoiding all things athletic — and wet — to tinker. Endlessly. From intricate beaded jewelry to delicate needlepoint, she touched and transformed everything. “I was very into tiny glass beads,” Ashley recalls. “I sold my first pair of earrings on the playground for $1.50 when I was in fourth grade, and after that there wasn’t a moment I wasn’t making something with my hands.” And, when she wasn’t making, she was destroying, ceaselessly terrorizing clocks, TVs, and computers with the range of tools that fed her fascination. Wood shop became her respite in middle school; the art room her solace in high school. …

As it Should Be: North Bridger Bison

When successful Chicago lawyer Matt Skoglund traded his job and all he’d known for the rural grasslands of the Shields Valley in Wilsall, Montana, he left more than a few naysayers in his wake. But Skoglund and his wife, Sarah, were following threads more deeply woven into the fabric of humanity than modern man might like to admit: the transience of a life well-lived. …

A Study in Opposites: Jill Soukup

For Jill Soukup, art is life and, arguably, vice versa. A formative youth admiring horses from afar and attempting to capture their powerfully wild grace through drawings, paintings and sculptures made for a strong artistic foundation. As a teenager, she continued her creative pursuits: starting a pet portrait business, painting murals, and dabbling in logo design for local organizations. Her level head and business acumen led her to consider how she could merge her love of art with a financially solvent future. After earning a fine arts degree at Colorado State University in 1991, Soukup began work as a graphic designer and illustrator. But she never stopped painting. …

Creative Evolution: Ellie Thompson

Ellie Thompson has been a creative her entire life. She designed clothes in high school, was a dancer, a theater geek. Aspirations as a gemologist fueled moves to California for school, to Chicago for work, and, finally, to the doors of one of the top appraisers in the country, Richard Drucker. As his assistant, Thompson apprenticed in the trade. Shortly thereafter and at Drucker’s insistence, Thompson opened her fine jewelry appraisal company The Chicago Gem Lab. She was just 24. …

A Mouthpiece and a Microscope: Andrea de León

Little in life is as it seems. Tucked comfortably into our respective realities, we perceive all through lenses as unique as fingerprints. We are all composed of the same basic elements and, yet, seldom do we come across a perfect match. Andrea de León is perhaps the most poignant iteration of this truth. She is a befitting combination of nuanced artistry and straightforward physics. And she intends it to be so, answering the random collision of atoms and exchange of energy with her own introspective process. With equal parts force and finesse, she manipulates metal and glass to coerce presence and perspective from a growing audience of admirers around the globe. …

Explorer of Place and Purpose: Joe Van Eeckhout

Photographer and documentary filmmaker Joe Van Eeckhout is an explorer of place and purpose. As he gives voice — frame by frame — to unheard stories spanning the globe, he creates sweeping narratives, inviting empathy and compassion, distilling a sense of connected humanity between subject and audience that transcends geography. …