Blacksmith's art reminiscent of Frank Lloyd

COBDEN, Ill. -- The first time Roberta Elliott struck hammer to steel, she was hooked.

"It's one of those things, you either love it or you hate it. For me, it's very exhilarating," Elliott said. "When you work the steel, when you're hammering a lot, it's like a runner's high. The endorphins get built up. That's a really good feeling."

Elliott is a blacksmith by trade. She heats steel to as much as 2,600 degrees over a coal-fired forge, then pounds it into pieces of art.

Her work is occasionally reminiscent of architect Frank Lloyd Wright's. Like Wright, Elliott is inspired by nature. She incorporates elements of the rolling Union County woods that surround her workshop into her art.

In Elliott's hands, a simple floor lamp becomes an elegant tangle of vines, with a hand-blown glass shade that resembles an orchid.

"When I first started in blacksmithing I was trying to make big, geometric iron. Not only was I not very good then, it just wasn't how I saw the steel," she said. "I was forcing it, I wasn't working with it. Once I started working in a more organic style, things started falling into place."

Elliott grew up in Alton. She didn't expect to become a full-time artist when she moved to Carbondale to attend Southern Illinois University in the late 1970s.

"I came here to go to medical school. I did my first year down here, then went up to Springfield," she said. "I got to a point where I knew it wasn't right for me. I really like physiology and ended up getting my Ph.D. in physiology here."

A month after defending her dissertation, the restless Elliott was a student again, this time at the Midwest School of Horseshoeing in Macomb.

"I just knew I couldn't deal with academia," she said. "I've always been athletic, and after sitting at a desk for four years during graduate school, I knew that wasn't going to be right. I had ridden horses, so I thought I'd be a farrier."

Remembered the passion

Elliott frustrated her instructor by spending her lunch hours making art objects instead of horseshoes. She soon discovered that she didn't know enough about horses to be a farrier, but she remembered the passion she had when taking art classes under Brent Kington at SIUC.

"The first time I hit the steel, I didn't need any inspiration, it was already there," Elliott said. "I knew this was what I wanted to do. Brent gave me the direction. It was good to be in the classes and see people who knew what they were doing. There were some really good smiths in my class. Brent would throw out a couple of words of wisdom that have hung with me and helped guide me."

Elliott now owns her own business, The Velvet Hammer. She does commission work, such as the large wrought iron railing that sits at one end of her shop. When completed, it will go on a spiral staircase in a Cape Girardeau home. But Elliott's stock in trade is the smaller household objects such as lamps, door knockers, candleholders and wine racks.