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What can be done? Simply to carry on the work. I think it is what he would want us to do. To help, to teach, to take artistic risks, to lead by example.
I had the luck to meet Manfred when I was allowed to go to his workshop in Aachen Germany in 1985, though I had seen him demonstrate at ABANA in Ripley, West Virginia in '82.
People speak of experiences that change their lives, and my time with Manfred, his son Timm, and the boys did that in a really big way. Without him, I would be nowhere near where I am today as a smith and this is true of most of the Americans and others that worked in his shop or knew him. The work, the fast rides to lunch on the sidewalk in his father's old Mercedes, the jokes, and the friendship changed my life. |
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Manfred made repeated trips to Africa to help smiths in Togo by bringing water to their village. He initiated and organized three World Congresses of smiths in Aachen. He built the first "Bridge of Friendship" so that smiths around the world could share and contribute by working together. He was recognized with many awards and prizes including ABANA's Bealer Award in 1992.
Manfred did so much to nurture international cooperation between smiths by traveling and demonstrating that it affected most of us in some positive, if unseen, way. He did a workshop here in Michigan in 1987 and when he saw that I had painted his name on my 4B Nazel, he said "Oh good, now I will always be working in the States!" And so, in a sense, he will be. His humor was always ready to bring relief to a tough situation or job. |