Ken Roby
After graduating from Hawken School, attending Montana State University’s Farrier Science program and completing his bachelor’s degree from Kent State University, Ken established himself as a professional farrier. As his interest in ironwork grew, Ken retired from a fifteen-year career shoeing horses to concentrate on the art of blacksmithing in the early 1990’s.
Ken is largely self-taught but has also attended numerous conferences, workshops and classes over the years. He is a member of several blacksmithing organizations and has presented workshops and clinics in his shop for aspiring blacksmiths as well as forging workshops in conjunction with organizations such as the Sculpture Center of Cleveland, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and Touchstone Center for Crafts.
Ken’s parents, sculptor / potter George Roby and painter / illustrator Sue Roby, were certainly not without their influence in Ken’s creative experience and have provided much labor, assistance, and support as Ken’s work has developed over the years.
Ken has a wide variety of interests which he feels significantly impact his way of looking at things and, ultimately, his work.
He was a volunteer firefighter and corporate officer with the Chagrin Falls Fire Department for 16 years before retiring in 1996. Ken volunteered for 9 years at Fieldstone Farm Therapeutic Riding Center working with a variety of disabled children and adults, helping to teach horsemanship and riding skills. He has played fiddle since 4th grade, and often plays fiddle, banjo & mandolin throughout the area with the old time string band, “Mr. Haney”.
When there is “free time” Ken likes to tinker in the shop, play tunes, and help his wife Nancy around their homestead, “Wildweed Farm“.
Shannon Mallory
Shannon Mallory has been with Village Blacksmith long enough to know better, more than two decades. Her particular interests in the job are the beginning and the end – creating pieces in the forge, and doing the finish work that makes your piece look like a magazine photo. Her specialty is in creating elements of the natural world. If a hummingbird or butterfly investigates your railing’s floral element, she is satisfied. When not working at the shop or her home forge, you can find her reading, creating art pieces in other media, being involved with her community and local high school theatres, or playing her harp.
“Life is so short, and the craft so long to learn.” – Hippocrates