"Peridium"

Fascinated by nature, its textures and the mysteries of the known and unknown, I present ‘Peridium’, a culmination of ideas of a spreading fungus devouring and decaying its host. With a carved 15n20/1084 handle and meteorite forged within the layers of the alloys, an intricate carving displays the infection spreading across the handle, and into the blade… The blade is forged in a San-Mai construction with 1084 high carbon steel and a ‘tearing’ pattern featuring Bertie Rietveld’s “Fracture” Damascus Steel core. In intricate inlays across the blade, can be found 50k+ layers of Damascus Steel forged with meteorite iron set into the blade in a plug-welded fashion. Alongside, a specimen of solid meteorite on either side of the blade from the legendary Muonionalusta meteorite… Displaying the intricate crystal structure within the meteorite iron, features the fascinating Widmanstätten pattern in a 8-sided pattern formation. Resulting in a cross-hatch effect, this structure was formed over billions of years in the vacuum of space to create this effect. Unable to be replicated by any technological processes, it is a shear feat of nature in a complex and rare occurrence. A two-piece construction of the handle and blade, in a fastened construction in which the handle is “grabbing” on to the blade. With gold embellishments across the surface of the steel, it resembles the feeling of an ancient relic of history. Weighted and comfortable in the hand, the piece balances right at the heel of the blade. With a textured handle moving into portions of the spine, and a thin flexible high-polish blade tapering from heel to tip; provides both a functional and comfortable blade. This work of art is a piece of culinary cutlery in the culmination of history and the enigma of our universe.

THE METEORITE

4.565 billion years ago, a protoplanet was formed within the predicate nebula that would eventually become our solar system. Older than Earth itself, the Mounionalusta signifies the “beginning” and the “end” of many things. It grew for many years, and became one of the building blocks from which it represents. Over the course of 4 billion years, it was stripped of its mantle. It was destroyed from the result of many collisions from other planetoids and debris from which orbited the star it formed around, and was knocked out of course. 400 million years ago, the minor planet was crushed resulting in its iron core being exposed; and found itself drifting in space, slowly cooling down from a liquid to a solid over the next several million years. It floated in space for an endless amount of time existing as an asteroid. Until roughly one million years ago, it found Earth… It entered Earth's atmosphere breaking into hundreds upon thousands of fragments that rained down in a shower of fire and chaos upon what we now know as northern Sweden and Finland. It now found its place on Earth, and over the course of nearly a million years, it lived to survive four ice ages across the Swedish tundra. Until in 1906… it was found. Near the small village of Kitkiöjärvi, the first of its pieces were recovered near the place of the Muonio River. It soon was studied by scientists in the year of 1910, in which the structure of our solar system got its name… the Muonionalusta. Named after the muonio river, and “alusta” meaning “from the beginning”… To this day, only around forty fragments are known. Widely known as not only one of the oldest meteorites known to mankind, but a piece of what we know as the “beginning”. The damascus steel forged into the blade alongside the meteorite iron has incorporated a process only successfully accomplished by a few bladesmiths across the world. The process in which the damascus steel is crafted is a culmination of layers consisting of 15n20 (a high nickel-carbon steel) and 1084 (a high carbon steel). These steels react differently to oxides, in which when they are submerged into an acid; only the high-carbon content of the 1084 steel will dissolve and be dissolved away, while the high nickel content of the 15n20 will be left unaffected. These steels are stacked together and layered in specific methods and forged at near-melting temperatures. These temperatures allow the steel to essentially 'fuse' or 'forge-weld' into one solid bar. With proper technique, a singular bar of steel with a molecular structure consisting of multiple types layers of different alloys is born. When submerged into acid, displays the oxide etching between the different steels. This layered pattern is then forged and manipulated in special ways to achieve a specific pattern, then the process is adding meteorite iron... Meteorite due to its age, has a very large crystalline structure within its molecules that due to the iron cooling from a liquid to a solid in the vacuum of space, can take billions of years before it eventually converges. This amount of time allows the iron and the nickel content in the meteorite to slowly separate and align itself into a crystalline structure formation that is known as a Widmanstätten pattern. This is the name describing the pattern, in which the Muonionalusta (or Octahedrite meteorite) contains an 8-sided figure (similar of an 8-sided dice) that has formed within the steel structure. Due to its age, it has become so purely separated and aligned that not only is it visible to the naked eye; but it is 100% mathematical to the smallest degrees. When meteorite is heated above a certain temperature, due to the pattern being formed by heating and cooling; allowing the steel to heat and cool again will allow the molecules to realign back to a different crystalline structure. In which, the pattern that was created for so long, completely disappears and cannot be replicated or restored... Due to careful experimentation and years of practice, is a process as an artist, is a tremendous experience to be apart of the few people in the world to successfully perform such a feat.