Trenton Tye from Forged in Fire presents at Kiwanis

Trenton Tye, owner of Purgatory Ironworks in Calhoun County, presented at Kiwanis at the invitation of Kevin Kwashnak. Tye talked about how he was first introduced to forge work. “My family came to Calhoun County where I grew up in the Calhoun County school system.” He talked about the financial challenges of the school system there. “They did not have money for books, but they had money for gas or diesel rather, and they would ship us around to any place they could for a field trip, one of those places being Andersonville.”

He told how that field trip in particular shaped the rest of his career. “When I took that field trip from South Georgia to Andersonville, I saw for the first time my first blacksmith, his name was Jay Penfield Reakirt, and he had been in Andersonville since the early 1970s as their blacksmith.”

Tye recounted initially distracted students piling on benches in front of Reakirt’s forge. “This little fella in a conductor’s cap and coveralls comes out very quietly, he reaches into the fire and he removes an iron rod with his bare hands none the less, and the center of this iron rod is glowing white, it is throwing sparks, I [had] never heard steal hiss, and he holds it up and he says ‘Superman eat your heart out!’ and he bends it in half.”

Tye continued his academic career with a six-year stint at Georgia Southwestern, but while he was enrolled in the school, he was also learning blacksmithing from Reakirt. “Inbetween classes, I was up there, working the craft.” Tye worked for Reakirt until his passing in 2003.

Tye told how the work led to all sorts of unexpected opportunities. “So as of today, I have my hands in a lot of different pies. It’s very difficult to say that all I do is blacksmith, because my primary job and the people that work for me, our job is to make money. Our job is to survive.”

He talked about how they had found creative ways to monetize the craft. “We have an 1840s forge wagon where I actually perform doing the blacksmith work presenting the history just like Jay Reakirt did in Andersonville. But what Jay did in a closet I have done across the country.” He talked about how his propensity for showmanship led him to Youtube which later netted him the opportunity to perform on Forged in Fire.

While performing on Forged in Fire was unprofitable, it led to another offer from Discovery to appear on their show Master of Arms. Today, a full half of Tye’s business is providing props, training, and consultation. “This morning, I sent two packages to New Mexico for the new series of American Horror story, many of you guys have watched that on TV. Last year, we worked on the Star War series the Mandalorian.”

Tye talked about the importance of keeping the right mindset to survive as an artist. “The point I want to make, it has always been business here.”

Tye also commented on the poor preparation for artists. “I have leveled more than one criticism at art departments on this end of it because the first thing that you teach an artist is not art, it’s business. Because if you are going to take a student’s money, ten’s of thousands of dollars from somebody that’s never made ten’s of thousands of dollars. . .if you do not give them a means to make a return on their investment, you are hamstringing them to start with.”

Tye also talked about working on the Mandalorian. “There’s a real schism in culture between LA film people and New York people, and there was a mix, so it was really this trifecta of weirdness.” He talked about the expense. “It was weird, but it was a $170,000,000 production on that end of it, so when you’re like handling one of the puppets you’re handling probably a $1,500,000 worth of investment, and that’s a little unsettling because you’ve never been so afraid to drop something in your life.”

Tye also talked about his perspective on the downfall of Andersonville. “What killed things like Westville and Andersonville was the school systems.” He talked about how both venues made much of their money from the school children who used to visit.

Tye also referenced bad management at Andersonville. “If you have enough money, bad management can go on forever. When things get tight and you don’t have the right management the cracks start to show immediately and that’s what happened in Andersonville.”

The post Trenton Tye from Forged in Fire presents at Kiwanis appeared first on Americus Times-Recorder .